Tag: recycle

What’s Your Favourite …?

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My Magic Marker Finally Paid Off

Cross-posted at DailyKos and Firefly-Dreaming.

After it was announced this week that New York City would make a “first major changes to the city’s recycling laws since 1989” and “require the Department of Sanitation to recycle all rigid plastic containers,” I know I played a small part.

I’d like to think that waiting my turn at public hearings and constant letters to elected officials had something to do with keeping “more than 8,000 tons of plastic out of landfills annually.” I wish my low impact DKos diaries played a part but I’m pretty sure that my graffiti had some serious impact.

For about a year whenever I found myself in the privacy of a public men’s room stall, I just scribbled some message on the wall.  I also think that so many New Yorkers assuming that the city accepted all sorts of plastic played a role in the new legislature but a few saw my message.

Protest NYC’s limited plastic recycle program. Place all plastic in the Blue Bag!

I wrote other messages. Too many to remember but here are a few more.  

Pony Party: Spring Cleaning

When I used to watch a lot more TV I really liked to see the TLC station’s home improvement shows like Trading Spaces.  There was another show called Clean Sweep that always impressed me.  For those that haven’t seen it…   The Clean Sweep crew would show up at someone’s house where they would show us two rooms crammed full of junk.   With barely enough room to walk through.  And I would gawk at all that stuff and think I would never let my place get that bad.   The CS team would completely clear the rooms and then a designer and carpenter would come in and paint and redo the rooms with closet organizers and lableled bins, furniture, etc. and turn it into a functional space again.  Meanwhile the couple would be out on their lawn with all their piles of stuff.  The host and a professional organizer would then help them sort through all of it to Keep, Sell or Trash.  The organizer guy (with a cute Australian accent) would lay out a little section of tarp and allow them to keep only what could fit on it.   Then the homeowners go through excruciating distress trying to part with grandma’s treasures and all the unused wedding gifts they received…etc.   After they sort through it, they hold a yard sale.  What isn’t sold is donated to a charity.   In the end, the host brings them back into their house to see the new rooms: pristine and decluttered.  They are always stunned and delighted and most of them cry.   Sometimes I cried too.