Can It For a Greener Planet?

Morning Routines. They make the world go ’round. And I cling to my morning routine like a fat kid to the last Peanut M&M in the bag.

Part of my morning routine is shared by the masses in New York; I read the paper on the train (two papers actually). I pick up my AMNY and my New York Post in the station and then read them as thoroughly as I can over the course of my 20 minute commute. I have the two papers in my possession for no more than twenty minutes each day. Then I get off the train at Broadway - Nassau and pile them on top of the hundreds of other newspapers spilling out of the trash cans.

This annoys me for two reasons: One, I don’t like feeling the judging eyes on me as I attempt to put the newspapers into the can only to have them slide off the top of the pile and onto the floor where I leave them for fear of stopping and getting trampled by heard of office-bound cranksters. Two, its just stupid. Why are there no recycling containers on the subway platforms?

I’m not a save-the-world freak, but this seems like such a basic concept: there are thousands upon thousands of people tossing paper of the same weight, color, type into the trash everyday. It seems to me that this would be the perfect recycling material that would require minimal sorting effort. Most of the papers aren’t even wrinkled because people have them for such a short period of time.

The final kick in the teeth from the city is the “Can It For a Greener Planet” stickers that coat the outside of the trash cans. Making the effort to toss your coffee cup in the trash is not going to do a thing to help the planet’s greenness or even the overall appearance of the platforms. But recycling massive amounts of newspapers daily might make a dent…