I'm Retired! Now what?

While dumping off all my stuff at the local recycle center I always have to wonder how many folks actually go to all the trouble to recycle these days.  Seems as though every time I go there it’s just a bunch of old guys like me showing up.  Of course, I have to realize that young guys have jobs, so maybe that’s the deal.  But while I’m on the subject of old guys, several things came to mind as I emptied my bags and bags of plastic stuff into the “plastic” bin.  The most prominent being, “Just how far has plastic come in the years I’ve been alive?”  Now doesn’t that sound like something an old guy would say?

Here’s something that really sounds old.  My parents actually remembered a time when plastic was NEVER used.   Now let’s think about that.   No plastic?!?!  How did they survive?  What did they drink out of?  How was anything liquid packaged?  As I was dumping the plastic stuff in the bin, I had to notice all the plastic bottles that Margaret and I use just from the simple product of drinking water.  I have to wonder how I would react if I could go back in time and talk to jr. high me, explaining how much bottled water I’ll be drinking.  I’d probably say something like, “Bottled water?  What the heck dude!  Can’t you drink from a garden hose like a normal person?”

Of course, there’s also the concept of all the soft drinks we chug down from plastic bottles.  Remember the time when we used to pull the returnable, glass bottles from the old COKE machines?  These were the bottles that had been washed and reused so many times they had rings worn into the outside glass.  Or maybe I’m the only one who remembers those days.  The real kicker is the fact that these bottles were a standard size of ten ounces.  Ten ounces!?!  How did we survive on such minimal liquid refreshment?  We’d die of thirst now!  I also have to remember that these early bottles in machines cost a mere dime!  Wow!   Now I’m really reaching back to the good old days.

What really blows my mind though is how most of our dishwasher and laundry detergent is now liquid and comes in plastic bottles.  Back in the day, both of those types of detergents only came in powder and were in cardboard boxes.  The only washing stuff that came in bottles was fabric softer and bleach.  However, in an everchanging world the old Clorox bleach bottles haven’t changed much over the years.  I remember as a kid taking these bottles and making pigs out of them.  Yes pigs!  I’d glues little eyes on the bottle right below the handle which left the pointy opening of the bottle for the pig’s snoot.  Then I’d cut some ears out of construction paper (or cardboard) and tape or glue them on top while using a pipe cleaner for the curly tail.  I’ve forgotten what I used for the feet, but I’m sure it was something I dug out of the trash can.  Why did I do this?  I don’t have a clue, but one has to remember that we didn’t have the internet or cool video games to play back in those days.

I can also remember a time when motor oil didn’t come in plastic bottles.  When I started driving in high school the cans were paper with metal tops and bottoms, and everybody had an oil can spout that we would jab into the can’s metal top.  And as I look back even further, I can recall when oil cans were all metal.  I remember this mostly because I used to beat them down flat with a hammer and mold them into ash trays.  Nobody in my family smoked, but I thought it was a cool thing to do regardless.  Once again, we didn’t have the internet or cool video games to play back then.

By the time the 1980’s rolled around we had all become addicted to the two-liter plastic soft drink bottle and apparently there were thousands of them going unrecycled.  I remember seeing a news story about some guy who was trying to bring awareness to how many plastic bottles we trashed by hot glueing a bunch of empty, two-liter bottles together and making a huge pontoon boat with them.  The national news did a feature story on this dedicated soul, but I never saw a follow up story which leads me to believe that maybe the plastic bottle pontoon boat is now resting at the bottom of a lake somewhere.  Such makes me wonder what kind of party boat I could put together if I hot glued all the plastic bottles that Margaret and I go through.  It would be interesting to have a pontoon boat constructed of everything from old Sunny Delight bottles to Osteo Bi-Flex bottles.  Then again, I have to question if all the weight from the hot glue would just sink the whole thing.  Oh well, it would make a heck of a FACEBOOK post if nothing else.  For the time though, I guess I’ll just dump all the plastic stuff into the recycle bin.