The environment we all share

Roderick Nordell

Why do we break into our weekends to take bags of old newspapers, magazines, and glass to the recycling station before it closes at three? If I had any doubts before, the young man with one arm would have erased them. He was a volunteer attendant the other day when I drove up to the wooden steps that lead to the huge containers waiting to be filled. I barely got the trunk of the car open when the young man, jacket flapping in the chilly air, practically wrested a shopping bag crammed with papers out of my hands.

"Let me do it," he said, full of jaunty determination as well as good deeds. I stood back in amazement. He didn't carry the bag up the steps. He lofted it over his head from the ground as if pitching this dead weigh up to a basketball backboard. Then he lifted and threw again, and together we (I used the stairs) finished off the rest of the bags.

If he could do his bit for the environment that we all share, how could I not do mine?

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