I have been called a tree-hugger, a hippie and who knows what else to reference my green Earth tendencies. The funny thing is, I’m not even obsessive about it. All I do is recycle paper, plastic, metal and glass. I make a conscious effort to reduce, reuse and recycle. That’s it. Apparently, because I don’t get anything out of it (I actually pay someone to pick up my recyclables each week instead of collecting them until the scrap yard will give me a dollar), I am an obsessive green freak. Whatever.

I was actually the first in my neighborhood to participate in the pickup program. I called before we ever moved in to get it all setup. I got green buckets, filled them up and set them on the curb every two weeks. Occasionally, they would miss me and I would have to call. That’s how I found out there was no one else in my entire neighborhood of 1200 people who recycled. A few others have jumped on board and pickup is now weekly because we were filling the truck too quickly. A good sprinkling of homes in the area have their blue buckets set out each week. Mine were green. They apparently changed equipment in the 2 years it took for someone else to join the program.

Now I set my blue buckets out every most Wednesday nights. I loved my green buckets—they just seemed so representative of their purpose—but they disappeared awhile back. I thought they blew away in a storm, but recently I have noticed a house down the street sporting old, beat-up green buckets for their recycling. I know those are mine. No one else has ever had green buckets. Don’t think recycling a few of your beer bottles is going to erase your bucket-thieving karma.