Things You Find in the Recycling

Well, not to give up too much information about myself and destroy the mystique that I've built up around my blog, but I run a recycling facility and from time to time we get interesting, bizarre, and occasionally disgusting things coming in here.  From time to time I'll lay them out here for you dear readers. (Both of you.)  I have found that seeing what a community discards reveals very interesting things about them.  Some people are oddly neat about their refuse.  Some people are generally wasteful and discard useful/valueable items. *Note: This  is one of my pet peeves since I abhor waste and wastefulness.  I try not to judge people too harshly on this one trait as it is sometimes done without thought or through ignorance or some deep programing that they can't control.  Many people obviously do not think about their waste, what happens to it, or where it goes, once it leaves their hand.  This is what I call the magic "away" where trash goes.  These people disregard the Trash/Recycle waste stream in both directions. They don't care to recycle and often throw good, reuseable, or recycleable, items in the trash, but this can also manifest itself in people throwing funny, disgusting, or trashy things in the recycling.


I will present, here, for you these items from time to time. ( mostly avoiding the disgusting.)  What do we have this week?  Well let's meet Rita and William.

A inconspicuous cardboard box starts to head up the conveyor belt.  One of the warehouse staff grab it, empty the contents, which are obviously UN-recycleable, and pitch the box into the hopper.  Then it's twin pops onto the conveyor and the other material handler grabs it.  S____ is a bit more inquisitive so she takes a moment to look a the box and notices a name.  Then she looks at the grey, ashy, contents of the plastic bag she holds in her hand and it dawns on her (as it may have dawned on you), "THESE ARE HUMAN REMAINS!!!"  That's right, someone recycled,  a cremated dear aunt Rita and Uncle William.  Wow.

Now I like to think that this may have been done under innocent cercumstances.  No-one would willingly look at the box containing the remains of another human being and think. Ah the hell with it toss it in the recycling and let those a-holes deal with it. That way I don't have to pay to take it to the dump." Right?...Right? I mean someone was probably cleaning out the house of a dearly departed reletive while in a fog of grief and just saw a cardboard box.  Being an earthy type person the did the 'green' thing and recycled it.  Simple mistake.  Right?  anyway tha's my story and I'm sticking to it.  Otherwise if I start to think about scenario A, I start to get too depressed.
Over and out.