Recycle blues


Eileen has been thinking a lot about recycling lately. She’s on a committee at church about how to green up. So she has been doing research and has found out quite a bit about the local trash companies policies. Policies they don’t make very clear since they have no systematic way of getting info to the public other than a few lines on a sheet they ask you to put out when you need more recycling bags and a goofy dvd they will give you.

Plastic bags have been bothering Eileen. Our local grocery store gives them out. And of course they are not recyclable.

Eileen was looking at purchasing some fancy cloth bags.

I’m pretty much the grocery guy, so I suggested that at least we could take old plastic bags and re-use them.

Meijers (our local chain) has a policy that you get five cents back for every bag you bring back.

So yesterday we were armed with a bag of bags. When we got to the check-out, I started putting old bags up on the little two prong rack they have for each bag. The sales clerk got a bit flustered and I told her I was just trying to make easier for her. I asked her if there was some way I could do that (make it easier for her). She said yes and took the bags from hand and put them beneath her counter.

Eileen and I looked at her as she began bagging with new bags.

Eileen said aren’t you going to resue the bags?

The lady assured us that she would credit us five cents for everyone.

I told her we were more interested in reusing the bags than the five cents.

She gave me the bags back (embarressed and a bit huffy) and I proceeded to open up bags. I offerred to bag the groceries myself. But with Meijers’ little set-up this is hard for customers to do. And by now the clerk had decided we were from the moon and a bit of problem and was not talking any more. Ah life in Holland.

At the end she finally spoke and asked us how many bags we brought so she could give us our nickel a bag. (Hey nickel bags… hmmm)…. Both Eileen and I said to forget the money which the sales clerk gladly did.

As she handed me the receipt she said “have a good day” with the perfect inflection for “drop dead.”

When we got in the car, Eileen said something about how that experience would not encourage one to recycle.

I guess not.

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