People say recycling doesn’t matter; they claim it all ends up in the same landfill. People say this while they throw away their plastic cups as if it is someone else’s problem. But recycling pays for lunches, medicine along with tuition for real people.
On Saturday mornings, a town in Oregon smells like stale beer. The town has a main street, a diner in addition to a gas station. Every Saturday, locals bring bags of cans to the park. Retirees in sneakers, mothers with children, and high schoolers who partied the night before, but need volunteer hours, come.
The air smells of sticky soda and sour beer. But the people do not care. They sort, cash in the deposits next to give the money to the school for lunches. This is done a nickel at a time. By the end of the year, hundreds of children got fed – this happens because people rinse their bottles instead of putting them in the trash.
People say recycling is pointless. Tell that to a child eating mac and cheese at school because of those nickels.
In Lagos, Nigeria, families use plastic bottles to pay school fees. The program is called RecyclePay. People bring a sack of plastic, workers weigh it, that value applies to the child’s tuition.
When someone says “it is just recycling,” I want to give them a plane ticket. Go explain that to a parent who sends their child to class with bags of trash.
Recycling makes people talk. At first, it feels awkward standing around sorting plastics, but then conversations happen. You hear someone’s child has asthma. Someone else raises money for a soccer team.
In Brazil, the Catadores, who are waste pickers, disliked being invisible. So they organized, formed co-ops along with started selling recyclables directly. Suddenly they made enough to build daycare centers. Daycare centers came from garbage. That feels both depressing and amazing.
In Manila, families trade bags of bottles for vouchers, and those vouchers pay for medical care. Grandmothers leave clinics with real medicine because their neighbors collected plastic.
Do not say again how recycling does not matter.
The projects are not perfect. Prices for recyclables rise and fall like a stock market. Storage space is always too small. Sometimes the money vanishes because a local official says they deserve a part of it.
But the programs that survive post receipts – they are open. “We recycled 1,200 pounds, got $3,400, bought 50 uniforms.” People like numbers when they are clear and direct.
Pick one cause. Shelters, medicine, whatever. Organize a collection once a month. Use a parking lot if needed. Post the results online. “We raised enough to cover 20 meals.” People understand that.
Bring businesses in. They like free publicity. Give a pizza party for volunteers. Keep it human, not corporate.
Imagine if just 5 % of your city’s recyclables went into a community project. That is not small change anymore. That changes things.
Forget numbers. Tell stories.
Nobody cares about “tons diverted from landfills.” A picture of a child eating lunch because of those cans, or a grandmother picking up medicine with a voucher, stays with people. That makes people show up with bags of bottles.
Stories win. Statistics make eyes look away.
The tech world gets involved. Apps scan recyclables, drop them at hubs in addition to track donations in real time. Some use blockchain. We needed crypto for trash.
But fine, if it keeps people honest, I will take it.
We heard the line for decades – recycle to “save the planet.” Yes. But it also saves people, right now, today.
Next time you put a bottle in the bin, do not imagine some faceless recycling plant. Imagine a school lunch. Or medicine. Or daycare. Because sometimes, that is exactly what happens.
If you still think recycling does not matter, I do not know what to tell you. Maybe walk to the landfill and see who wastes what.