cbs 20080830 TRASH

How the Democrats made me walk their talk.

This is DR.

Denver prides itself on its Green Denver campaign... and of course the Democrats wanted to support that by replacing the usual trash cans with resource recovery stations -- cans labeled recycle, compost, and the forbidden one, TRASH -- for the earth unfriendly refuse that remains until some future anthropoligist writes a thesis on why 21st century civilization disappeared.

But these were not mute receptacles -- these receptacles had college trained attendants, ready to help you choose correctly.  I was up in the press box about to discard a plastic salad container when a woman -- who had been there all evening but didn't seem to be reporting on anything, came up behind me, and said I might want to recycle that.  I apparently had been about to compost it instead.  At which point she offered to help me find the recycling number on the bottom. We determined the salad container was trash, and the leftover barbecue chips could be compost.  I would cue to a tape cut of the conversation at this point, but taping the recycling attendants was forbidden.  

This was the second time I'd needed disposal assistance, and frankly it creeped me out to know there were people whose job it was to watch me generate garbage.  

Lunch the next day posed a dilemma because I was pretty sure that waxed paper from my Southwestern Chicken Wrap was headed for the trash.  I didn't want to be TOLD that, I just wanted to toss it anonymously.  But every can was patrolled.  So, I put it in my man purse and took it to the hotel.  I'm not going to say what I did with it, in case this broadcast is being monitored.

I understand that by the end of the week they were taking a different approach, breaking into a happy dance when you recycled something.

Frankly, I've completely lost my appetite for packaged foods.

Now this.