By Steve Davies, Healthy Planet Columnist
I have to say that my kids and I just got back from vacation up in northern Minnesota and I once again realized how much recycling is just a part of life, even on vacation. At our family cabin, we have one bin for recycling, one for items to burn and one for trash. The burnable items we used to make a fire the last night we’re there in order to make one of our favorite treats, smores, then we take our recyclables to the local recycling center and finally, on our way out of town we put our trash, in one of the downtown trash cans.
Even on our road trip up there, I made sure we collected all our recyclables in the car until we got to one of the state rest stops in Minnesota where they always have bins to recycle metal, glass and plastic. If I’m being honest and I’ve probably said it before, it’s been that way for as long as I can remember going up there.
I know that I’m probably a bit more obsessed with recycling than most people but, I would be remiss if I didn’t say that sitting up by the lake for a week while taking our paddle boat out every day and learning to identify all the trees on our property wasn’t a constant reminder, at least to me, of how important it is to take care of this planet that we call home.
Now while we drove all the way up in one day this year, on the way back, we made a stop to see my cousin in Des Moines to get a family heirloom and so, ended up spending the night in a hotel where I was pleasantly surprised to find that they had both a trash can and a recycling bin in the room. It allowed us to put everything we’d collected along the way after leaving our cabin and depositing it there.
For the last part of the trip, we again collected everything that was recyclable and put it in the car with plans to recycle it once we got home. The only gas station we stopped at in Missouri had no recycling bins.
So, with my oldest always picking up trash wherever we go and my youngest now beginning to enjoy being outside more, both on our lake and walking around our property to identify all the trees, I feel like maybe we’re doing our small part. Finally, to update everyone on recycling our scrap metal, our plan is to do it the last weekend of the month. Again, I’ll keep you posted.
If you have recycling questions email me at thprecycler@yahoo.com