Feeling Guilty About See a Bottle or Can in a Storm Drain

In a short period of time, prior to writing this, I went through another evolutionary phase of my recycling. When I drove to work, I would feel guilty about the bottles I would see in the gutter down the road. I would remember them. There was a bottle in the neighborhood down the street that I passed daily that I saw for about three days until it was gone; down a drain I guessed.

And I thought about where it was now. Was it in the wash already? When would it end up in the lake? Would something try to eat it and get sick?

I started thinking about this more and more whenever I saw things on the street, in the gutters. I felt guilty, because even though it wasn’t my mess, it was the fact that I saw it there, and I was the “only” person who could do something about it.

And finally, I did.

Hopping Out of My Car to Pick Up a Bottle in the Gutter

One day I drove to work and was about a block down the street in this one neighborhood I always pass when I drove by a bush that had a sheet of plastic film trapped in it. There were also a couple of bottles in the vicinity. But that plastic wrap stayed in my head.

And when I drove home on lunch I saw it again. And on the way back, it was still stuck there. Looking at the sky outside I knew it might get stormy later that day. So I told myself that if it happened to still be there after work, I would grab it.

So four hours later I drove home and there it still was. And just in time too. The summer monsoon season has a habit of whipping up a random thunderstorm, and it was starting to get windy and it would start raining soon.

So I parked my car on the side of the road, put my hazards on, waiting for the cars to pass. I ran across the street and grabbed the plastic wrap, and I grabbed some bottles that were sitting right next to the storm drain. I threw them in the back of my car and made the rest of my way home.

I can only imagine what went through the minds of the people that saw me; this short girl in a dress running across the street to grab a piece of trash. I must look insane.

But I was happy to do it.

I am of the mindset that if you see something wrong with the world, do something about it, even if it’s not your job, your mess, your concern. No one else but ME was going to grab that plastic film. And the rest of the world would understandably not given a shit.

But I give a shit. I care to make sure that trash doesn’t end up in places that I can cause harm down the road, that it doesn’t make my world, my home, a dirtier place.

It’s not my mess, but I will clean up the things that I can. That being said, I will not hop out of my car for EVERY bottle I see. I’m not going to make myself late for work over a can. And I’m not going to put myself or others in danger because I want to grab a piece of trash.

So I will grab what is okay for me to grab in the moment. And even if it’s only one piece of trash, it’s one less piece ending up in the lake.

Adding a New Routine

I’ve recently gotten into the habit of bringing a bag with me while I take my dog for a walk and pick up any cans or bottles I find along the way. Sometimes I only find a couple things, and sometimes I find a full bag’s worth.

There was one particularly nice day I was out and decided to go a little farther on my walk than I normally do. A little before filling up the bag I had brought with me, I found an empty shopping bag that was stuck in a bush. There were some more cans and bottles down the way so I decided to keep going.

I ended up finding a lot more, and then came across another bag. Before long I had three full bags of recycling I’d found during my walk. It wasn’t how I’d planned to spend my day; I’d planned to only take a short walk that turned into a 45 minute one. But I felt good about what I’d done and had no regrets.

I know I won’t do that every day, but going out a couple of times a week with my dog to clean up the neighborhood has become a bit of a fun recreational activity for me.

UPDATE: I have started bringing my trash picker and a reusable bag with me whenever I go on a walk or hike somewhere. This way people know immediately what I am doing, and so I am not using plastic to collect the recycling I collect. I take the bag home and wash it instead!

UPDATE – Learning About Recycling

Over the summer of 2019, I got the opportunity to join a group tour of our local recycling center, operated by Republic Services. And from that tour, I learned A LOT about recycling, including what can and can’t be recycled, and how to properly recycle.

And while I discovered that some of what I was doing or how I was doing things in terms of recycling was wrong, I was able to take that information and share it with others so they don’t make the same mistakes as me.

For the sake of the length of this article and its consistency, I won’t go into massive detail about all I learned at the tour – instead, I will be writing a whole different article on that to share that information I’ve learned from the experience.

So for now, I have simply adjusted how I recycle things to make sure it’s done correctly, and I’ve learned how to better look for products to make sure that they’re recyclable. And so, my journey and adventures in recycling continue!