On Tuesday, I hope that we all pull in the same direction to move forward and continue the environmental benefits and amenities pay-as-you-throw trash collection and single-sort recycling service provides us.

Putting all recyclables into one bin is so easy and accommodating. Prior to this system, my home lacked the storage space to set up different containers for recycling (paper, cardboard, metal, glass and plastic), and it was time-consuming to haul them to a recycling unit. I pay $10 for eight 15-gallon pay-as-you-throw bags we need to purchase. That’s about 1.25 per bag, or less than buying a cup of coffee.

The trash bags I used to purchase from local supermarkets cost money, too, but offered no hope for reducing the volume of trash in our landfills, turning it into fuel for the waste-to-energy-plant, or recycling it into other useful consumer products. My household has difficulty to fill one bag per week.

My handy kitchen compost pail gathers all the organic food scraps, then we empty it into the larger composter in our back yard, where it works its magic of spinning us healthy compost to use in our front lawn Victory Garden.

Anthropologist Margaret Mead, said, “Never doubt that a small group of committed citizens can change the world.” Let’s be a large group of Waterville residents committed to changing our world for the better by voting to continue pay-as-you-throw and single-sort recycling.

“Every aspect of our lives is, in a sense, a vote for the kind of world we want to live in.” — Frances Moore Lappe.

Linda Gerard DerSimonian

Waterville


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