Guerilla Recycling

"We're not really certain that what we did was wrong, but we're certain that we what did was right."
                                                                                                                              - Lee Davis

We: two furtive shadows in the mid-day sun. We: Conscientious, concerned, determined. We: Fearless, seizing opportunities, daring anything. The town was dissolving into the two-hour long torpor of the French lunch hour. My kitchen table: buried; table space lost, languishing beneath a mountain of that which was reducible, reusable, recyclable. Yellow: The color of the bin lids dedicated to recyclables. Green: That's for everything else.

It finally had to be done. We had held off for us long as we could. A bag of trash here, a plastic bottle there, abandoned nervously - one at a time - into bins for as-yet-undetermined types of detritus. Never enough. Our mountain of recycling was too high - and our love of BN cookies too fond - to entertain the hope that we could continue to stem the tide in a piecemeal fashion. We had to take out the recycling.

Recycling, in addition to being a noble and beautiful thing - good for the world - is compulsory in France. Failure to recycle could, as far as we know, incur penalties ranging - we didn't really know - from a stiff fine to - why not? - deportation! We're immigrants, after all, and we seldom know but always worry, just a little bit.

Stealing down the street toward the center of town with eyes flicking from one side of the street to the other, Lee and I strolled along clutching a cargo of recyclables and looking for an empty recycling bin. Okay, there's a yellow lid. Full. Fuck! I don't even know if we're allowed to use these! What's the penalty for using someone else's recycling? Deportation, probably. Another one; full; fuck.

Finally, I spotted a likely candidate by the back-alley door of a main street shop. The owners were probably at lunch. Silently, I opened the lid and emptied my bag as carefully as I could. The cacophony of clattering coke cans... fuck again, and again! This is stupid, I'm trying to save the world for god's sake... Why does France make me wonder if I'm doing the right thing? Is it all the paperwork? They love their paperwork; I should've filled out some paperwork for this... Lee hoisted a box, an ersatz recycling bin full of other boxes, cans, and miscellaneous plastic... The bottom of the box is kind of shitty, should we still try to save it? My mind is humming, lucid; the tension clears away every thought not corresponding to the disposal of reclaimable refuse.

- Leave it! Leave the box! I hiss under my breath, and we close the lid.We will leave a man behind.

Okay, done... walking away. Not too fast... casual, but let's keep moving. Should I whistle?  No, rookie mistake. Okay, home. Inside. Up the stairs. Sigh of relief. So... okay. Yellow for recycling, green for everything else.

Now for the glass... we've been stacking up some glass bottles, and will have to deal with them pretty soon. Glass goes in a completely different container.

Vive la France.