Recycle

Recycle

Jul 22

Recycling is not new. I am sure that early men were masters at saving the bones from animal dinners and using them for weapons and utensils for their next meal. The paper industry used rags as their source of fiber until the 20th century and the car industry used mostly recycled steel to build early cars.

I first learned about recycling from my grandmother and aunts because they made quilts. Quilt-making is the perfect example of recycling because it shows how big a word recycling can be.

The first part of recycling is to separate the items that can be used again. Our shirt could be stained or torn, but separated became raw materials for new products. The second step of recycling is to collect. My grandmother would collect all these in a basket, just like many Tulsans put recyclables in a bin on the curb or in a bag to bring to our drop-off centers. Reprocessing the cloth meant cutting them into strips or squares, in today’s trash it means making new steel posts like the plant in Sand Springs or new paper towels like the big employer in Muskogee. But the word recycling isn’t finished until someone actually uses the new product. When you use the quilt for warmth in the winter or buy a product made from recycled materials, then you have completed the recycling circle.

Separate, collect, reprocess and then use. Each step is important in recycling. Each of these steps takes a little more commitment than merely throwing it away. It might mean having two bins, one for trash and one for those things more valuable than trash. It might mean paying a couple dollars more to the city or a couple dollars in gas to get it to a center. It might mean extra effort to find enough recycled materials to use or even having to shop around to find stuff made from recycled.

I hope that each step is getting easier and easier. I know that more people are separating and there are more businesses that are in the recyclable collection business. There are new manufacturers using recyclables as their raw material and the price of recycled copier paper is now cheaper than paper made from virgin materials. We have come a long way and the movement is really growing. The recycling habits of the past can be embraced today for a better tomorrow.