Irresponsible...

... and proud of it. Here's what triggered the post title... something Kris left in comments to a previous post, to wit:

Wine in bottles. Bottles are glass. Glass is recyclable. We do recycling in our town.

Consumption of good quality wine = being environmentally conscious.

Al Gore will finally return my calls! ;-)

Ummm... we don't do recycling here in P-Ville. We are, apparently, unreconstructed Neanderthals in that all our waste... bottles, cans, kitchen garbage, cardboard boxes (large and small), what-have-you... goes into the dumpsters here at Beautiful La Hacienda Trailer Park and from there off to the landfill. I contrast this to previous lives, wherein we saved all our bottles and cans and hauled them off to the local grocery store on a monthly or bi-monthly basis for to redeem the nickel or dime deposits (depending on whether we were in Michigan or New York) we paid when purchasing our beer and soft drinks. There are no such deposits here in unreconstructed New Mexico, and I'm glad for it. I frickin' HATED saving all those damned cans and bottles and hauling them off every so often. But I hated the thought of losing that money even more... so I played the game. No more. I cheerfully toss all my bottles and cans into the garbage with nary a thought and most certainly without regret.

It wasn't always so and it most definitely used to be worse: I could still be living in Berkeley, where I had to sort my trash into (a) kitchen waste, (b) paper... bundled and tied according to specific instructions issued by the Powers That Be, (c) green glass, (d) brown glass and (e) clear glass... there being separate and discrete receptacles for all the aforementioned categories of refuse located in the trash area of my apartment complex (actually a four-plex of apartments) in said City of Berkeley. Failure to comply with the city's recycling requirements guaranteed you a visit from the Berkeley Trash Police... I shit thee NOT. And this was nearly ten years ago... in the Year of Our Lord 2000.

Things got better when I left Berkeley and moved out to San Ramon, where the City Fathers were less environmentally conscious... or had access to bigger landfills. Recycling in those parts of the Bay Area remained a matter of personal choice... and it might please those of you Gentle Readers who take this sort of thing seriously that I did separate my glass from the rest of the trash and put it in the conveniently-provided recycle bins.

But no more. I never even give this sort of thing a passing thought, except for when the subject rears its less-than-comely head... such as it did when Kris broached the subject. I cheerfully throw my cans and bottles away with a nary a guilt-twinge and am supremely glad for the opportunity to do so. Thank you, P-Ville and New Mexico. I love you.

Yep. Al Gore would hate me if he knew. So be it. We're known both by the company we keep and the quality of our enemies, right? If that's truly the case then I have the best of all possible enemies.