The Birth Of Recycling
DR and I go to St-Lawrence Market on a regular basis, not every week, but it is our place of choice for fresh veggies and meat. Our routine is always the same, we get ready very early, take a few cloth bags with us and walk the 20 minutes it takes us to get there. Our first stop never changes either: Peameal Bacon On A Bun and we sit by the bakery and savour our breakfast. After that we start shopping, meat first, then we cross the street for the veggies directly from the farmers renting space for that day.
This week was no exception, except that while DR was paying for the sandwiches, I went to grab us some napkins out of the restaurant’s dispenser. I thought I was getting 2 or 3, but when I pulled the entire container emptied all over the counter… I took what I needed and walked away, not much I could do about that, I didn’t need 75 napkins after all. But it did take me back in time… a time when 6 friends from high school were on a school organized trip to New York City, my very first time there. I was 17 yrs old. It was 1981.
There we were for 4 days on a very limited budget trying to explore all that the city had to offer… we did everything from the Statue of Liberty to Empire State Building to Rockefeller Centre to 42nd Street at night to the Subway to Central Park to World Trade Centre to the Meat Market. We ran around like crazy without sleeping much while there.
Of course, our meals consisted of the cheapest options we could find: McDonald’s, Burger King, Street Meat, Pizza, etc, our rule was that as long as it was under $5 per person, it was OK, we didn’t care.
One girl that was with us was a little particular, she was actually the friend of a friend and we didn’t know here very well, but she was pleasant and got along with everyone… until the meals. Whatever place we would go to, she would take a huge amount of napkins and would wipe her mouth after every bite and throw the napkin out… a burger would mean approximately 20 napkins would get tossed, and double that if we went to a cheap pasta place… We really shouldn’t have cared, but it bugged all of us that she couldn’t re-use a napkin twice by turning it around. She said they were free with the meal and preferred using a new one everytime…
I swear that it was at one of those meals that a tricky Madison Avenue man watching us coined the expression wildly known around the world nowadays: Reduce, Re-use, Recycle.
Just based on us, little Canadian high school travelers.