I think I'm done recycling

My whole life, I've recycled.  I think.  I can't recall not recycling, it's been something ingrained in me as far back as I can remember.  I can recall having to sort out newspaper and cardboard, and getting in trouble when I didn't do it as a kid, resulting in the bins not being picked up.  What I'm trying to get at here, is I've always recycled.

I'm thinking I might be done with that now.

I've lived back in Washington for almost two months now after a three year stint in Texas, and in that time I've been completely put off by recycling.  The greenest damn state in the union has done this to me.  How the hell did that happen?

By them trying to be greener, and the hypocrisy that ensues.

Nothing is this beautiful in Texas.

Right after we moved here, a law passed in the previous election in Thurston County went into effect, which banned plastic bags from grocery stores, and created a surcharge on paper bags.

The plastic bag I saw coming, it's going to be state wide soon, but the charge for paper bags is infuriating, and here is why.

PAY MONEY FOR ME!

You can recycle paper bags.  In fact, most brown paper bags are made from old paper bags.  They constantly get recycled to make more paper bags.  Even if for some insane reason they were not recyclable, we live in Washington, where we have this little company called Weyerhaeuser.

For those of you not familiar with Weyerhaeuser, they're the reason people live in Washington today.  Over 100 years old, Weyerhaeuser did what all timber companies did in that time.  They blindly cut down trees without regard to anything.  But Weyerhaeuser did something very unique, and very Lorax-y (Yes, that's a word.   Shut up.)  On their own and with no pressure from government entities such as the EPA, Weyerhaeuser began to create working forests.  Using controlled forestry they began to function in much the way Ducks Unlimited does.  They realized they couldn't blindly harvest every tree in site (a practice that caused the world's largest sawmill in Longview WA to close), but that they needed to cultivate and nurture the forests in order to ensure they would always be able to harvest from them.  Yes, they began to do this for purely capitalist reasons, but it doesn't change the fact that the practice was also extremely environmentally friendly, and is a practice that they still do today, and have even greatly improved on with the advent of technology creating genetically superior trees (Seriously, I can't make this up)

It is not hard to find this environment in Washington.

Because of the nature of Weyerhaeuser and other timber companies in Washington, wood and pulp products are not only in great supply, but they are renewable, completely and utterly under the current forestry practices.  So much so that if no paper products were ever recycled in this state, the production rate of all of these products would be unchanged, and the rate at which timber is harvested would also remain unchanged.  Short story?  Charging for paper bags is stupid.

"But that's why you buy reusable bags Jake.  You bring them into the store and don't have to worry about the charges."

Sure, but it meant I had to buy them.  And they're not recyclable.  And they break easily.  Well, the handles break off of them easily.  Which makes them difficult to use.  Which makes me throw them away.  If I had a plastic bag, that wouldn't happen.  I know this because I have placed similar, if not greater, loads in plastic bags and not have them break.

"But plastic bags aren't recyclable!  They contribute to landfills and overall trash levels!"

I am evil!  FEAR ME!

Yes and no here.  Every plastic bag I got in Texas - every single one - was recycled in one of two ways.  The bags with holes in them were compiled into a pile and taken to a recycling center that recycled plastic bags.  Simple, easy, green.  The bags without holes were used when we scooped out our cat boxes to hold cat poop, meaning they got a second use, which is the whole purpose of recycling. 

Now, I have to buy plastic bags for the sole purpose of collecting cat poop, which results in me consuming the same amount of plastic bags as before, but now at a higher cost!

This frustrates the hell out of me.  I get it, recycling is good, save the planet, all that jazz, and I have done more then most people will do in the course of their lives simply by always recycling.  But while all of those grocery bag stuff has been extremely annoying, and in my opinion extremely unnecessary, they were tolerable to me as I still recycled.  Here's where the hypocrisy comes in.

Door hangers.

Like I said before, I've lived here for almost two months, and in that time we have already received more door hangers on our house then in three years in Texas.  We didn't live out in the boonies, we lived in the middle of suburbia, yet for some reason once we moved back to this green, environmentally sound state, we receive constant litter on our door.  And many of the hangers are not recyclable, because they're made of some sort of weird plastic!  And these are just the door hangers, I don't even count the flyers I get on the window of my car, which are almost always thrown away because I'm out and about when I get them.

This is the hypocrisy of recycling here, and I am through.  If you really want to reduce waste, pass a law outlawing door hangers.  Or car flyers.  That would make a huge difference, not inconvenice anyone, and make everyone happier.  Banning plastic bags?  Not the way to do it.

Am I going to stop recycling?  Of course not.  It's hard to break a habit I've had for 30 years.  But I'm still angry at my door litter.  And overreaction is the only way to react.