All I
wanted to do was throw some trash away. I had a paper cup from coffee at the
airport and decided when I was done with it the prudent thing to do was throw
it away. Why Not? I’ve thrown stuff away all my life and it never was
complicated before. 

Here’s how it used to work. You had some trash, which was
easily distinguishable from non-trash because you were finished with it. It
could be a paper cup I mentioned earlier or an already read newspaper or
magazine. It could be a candy bar wrapper or a boarding pass you no longer
need. Trash was obvious and a trashcan was provided in numerous places around
the airports to make it easy to keep America clean. 

There was a campaign years
ago that trained us not to be, and I quote, ‘Litterbugs”. I realize nowadays
that would be a disparaging remark in regards to bugs but that’s beside the
point. It was a simpler time when grown ups allowed a bear to tell them not to
play with matches. We were no longer supposed to throw trash out of the car
window while driving anymore as well but instead to save it and put it in the
officially designated trashcan.

 It was easy once you got used to it. Like
wearing seatbelts it became a habit and once acquired it felt wrong not doing
it. But even though saving your trash until you found a trashcan was inconvenient,
at least it made things cleaner and made you feel responsible in honoring our environment.
It was an easy way to do your part. 

So back to my story..I’m walking over to
the trash can to throw my cup away and find out that this isn’t just any old
trash can, but is a highly specialized can that was there not for trash, but
for newspaper waste. Next to that was one for glass and plastic. Suddenly throwing
trash away is no longer a simple task but instead is a recycle nightmare. They
want to encourage us to keep the world clean but they want to do it in a way
that is ridiculously impractical. I have some trash that I want to dispose of.
Is the paper from my cup equivalent to newspaper…paper? Where does gum wrappers
go or McDonalds bags. All stuff that is sold in airports, they just no longer
make it easy to dispose of it.

 Kind of a reverse scavenger hunt where you have
many different objects to start with and now have the task of finding a proper
disposal place. I went ahead and left my cup in the middle of the floor as a
silent protest to all who have ears to hear. “You want me to recycle? Give me a
can and you can sort it out.” Just how lazy are these eco-worshipers? You want
us to sacrifice; maybe you can get your
lazy butts to the recycle Mecca and start sorting out the plastic from the
newspapers?

 Yeah, just as I thought, the new progressives believe in
controlling your life, as long as they don’t have to get dirty. You want to
stop liberal fascism? Make it a law they have to live by their own ideology.
Once they have to wade through banana peels to save a tree downed by a
Starbucks cup, they’ll finally come to the conclusion the rest of us already
found. It’s getting colder out genius, and sometimes humans should be able to
dump their trash without it becoming a sacred ritual! The truth sure is
inconvenient huh?