I recycle. Do you?

I can still remember the first time I recycled....it was all my books and notebooks from the 1st to the 8th grade. They were all filled with memories and I just didn't want them in the trash. They were not garbage...they were the notebooks on which I learnt how to write, make calculations, draw and develop my general knowledge...they were in a way like a treasure to me. Luckily my father has always been a green person. At the time, he was a geography teacher and very much involved in ecological education and school camps. He is the one who made me believe that if I recycle my notebooks they would not become regular garbage, but would return to life in a different way, and all my experiences will be out there forever :)

I still recycle, though it's not easy to do that in Romania. I recycle about once a month one full bag of paper and one of plastic (also some glass from time to time). To make my life easier, I bought a double sided laundry container from Ikea, and in one of them I collect plastic and in the other one paper. This makes it easier when you have to put them in the containers. I keep them in the kitchen as this is a "garbage" that does not smell or cause any problems, so you don't have to worry about that.

I recycle anything paper and anything plastic. I had some doubts about whether in Romania all plastics are recycled, so I contacted several different recycling companies and NGOs, and they all replayed the same: any type of plastic is recyclable.

The other BIG question is about the fact that usually materials are collected together. This basically means that you struggle to sort them and in the end the all end up in the same place. Again, I received the exact same answer from every organisation I contacted: they are indeed collected together, but that does not mean that they all end up in the regular garbage. Romania recycles too little and so the industry is not very well developed, and as a result not enough investments come this way. For this reason, not enough trucks can be bought to transport the material...that's also the reason why at some point the containers get full and nobody comes to collect them in time. If more people would recycle than the need would grow and as a consequence more money would be put into this.

The important thing I found out in my quest is that the city hall (or district representatives) can be forced to bring special recycling containers next to your house....but you have to request that. You can easily do that by writing an official letter. You don't have to have your legal residence in that place...you just have to live there. I have not tried this, but it's next on my list :)

To make it easier, you can download the letter model from here:
http://www.viatadupacolectare.ro/resurse/trimite-o-scrisoare-autoritatilor

The movie I received from one of the NGO's is perfect for this post, and I really advice you to watch it. I am sure you will identify yourself in many of the questions raised and be sure that you will receive your answer.

I was so happy in Denmark because they make you recycle by law and you had special containers everywhere. I hope that some day this will also be available in my country...a very very very far away day from now. 

I know that many of my friends recycle, but I wonder how many? It's so easy to do it...the only trouble you get yourself through is taking the materials from your house to the containers. If you manage to get a container next to your apartment building that it's even easier. It's like everything else in life, one you do it for the first time, then it doesn't seam as hard anymore. I really think it's a matter of lack of education and laziness.

Don't expect things to change if you don't/ are not willing to change....

Today I took a bite out of the pavement....

...I fell. This morning I was running after the bus and just when I was about to hop on it, I fell next to the door. I didn't realise I hurt myself, so I just got up and hoped on the bus...that's when I realised "the situation". My favourite black jeans were ripped and under all the dirt there stood a small wound. My skin was just a little bit plucked and small drops of blood turned my white skin into a beautiful red bruise.

I was nothing bit smiles...I was actually happy. I haven't fell since forever, and soon I'm having my 27th birthday, so I just receive my proof that I am still "growing". What better gift could I have made myself than a bruise in my knee?!

It brought back so many memories of when I always used to have my knees and elbows full of wounds, and was proud of my scars. I remember we even had some sort of a sadistic children's contest on who gets to fall for as many times as possible in the same place, before the old bruise gets healed. Imagine that...my left knee made me proud back then...I had 5 or 6 falls on it and the bruise is still vaguely there...