This morning we braved the weather and went to our garden. It was almost too cold, but it felt good to get started. In one of the beds we found a broken glass bottle, so when we headed back home I placed it on the rack of my bike to throw it away. Quite close from the garden there are a few public trash bins, and I was just about to trash the glass, when I changed my mind and decided to bring it to the recycling station. This meant I had to take a detour, but hey, the things we do in the spirit of sustainability, aye?
When I arrived a the recycling bin I noticed a guy standing across the street, observing the scene. I went ahead and threw the broken glass into the correct receptor for the white glass. That’s when the guy crossed the street and told me that since it is a Sunday this was against the law. He would have to report me. As it turned out he works for a private security firm, Broncos Security, and apparently they were hired to watch over the recycling stations in the city on this April fools day. But this was no joke. The guy was generous enough to let it slide this time, for just this one bottle, and he didn’t report me. The guy who arrived right after me carrying his bags of recycling wasn’t this lucky and got busted.
This almost turned into a classic case of getting punished for doing the right thing. It really made me think who came up with this plan. It seems pretty stupid to punish people for recycling on a Sunday. Many will just decide to stop recycling altogether should they get fined. This calls for a mechanical solution, simply close the bins on Saturday evening and reopen them on Monday morning, this way no one can use them, no one gets annoyed, no one gets fined and no one has to stand there in the shivering cold and report people for recycling.