We in Oak Park have always prided ourselves on our collective social conscience. We have aspired to be greener than green, and it is reflected in our gardens, parks, and a residential recycling program that is the envy of every responsible neighborhood.
But why should our recycling end with the dumpster sitting in the alley behind our homes? Why could it not be extended to the parks as well? Put a blue recycling receptacle next to every trash can in every park and line every street with not only a trash can but a recycling bin as well. After all, probably the vast majority of what is disposed of in the public trash cans is recyclable anyway: water bottles, soda cans, candy wrappers, newspapers. The irony is that these water bottles, soda cans, candy wrappers, and newspapers will most likely not be heading to a recycling center where they belong but to a landfill where they will fester for another couple hundred years.
On a personal level, many of us are doing our best to hold back the tide of pollution by recycling our waste. But unless the larger institutions (public venues like airports, convention and commercial centers, stores, offices, restaurants, schools, parks, and on and on) climb aboard and start actively promoting and actually practicing recycling, our good intentions will not be worth a hill of recycled beans.
Jonathan Franklin
Oak Park