On vacation in California I realized how similar cosmopolitan cities are all around the world, yet each government has its ways of dealing with immediate problems that give them uniqueness.
In California you have to fit all your trash in one of three "official" bins (trash, recycle, or lawn clippings) and a truck with a gigantic robotic arm rushes down the street flipping the barrels over its top.
In the countryside of Maine you are responsible for your personal trash and recycling. My son said they never really throw anything out in Maine - they hold a yard sale and whatever is left stays there. While vacationing in Maine in the Moosehead region, recycling was at a local home. Years before Kramer and Newman of Seinfeld fame tried to leverage the +5 cents between state lines, my two boys wanted me to fill all voids in our trailer with bottles to recycle in Maine to get the extra nickel.
In the yard of this recycling center rested a surplus military deuce and a half with a For Sale sign and a warning in crayola on the fender "needs brakes". For about six consecutive years that truck rested in the driveway. I regret not photographing it before it was gone. I wonder if you traded in that old truck if you could collect $4,500 in cash for clunkers. Or go in and buy a clunker for say $800 and flip it? I bet Seinfeld could do that plot justice.
I was thinking how "green" chess is compared to other recreations. Although most clocks now require batteries, when compared to most pastimes chess, go, and bridge are very green. Is chess greener than golf?
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Thank You
Mike Griffin 08/18/2009
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