Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, September 27, 1993 TAG: 9309300292
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Ben Beagle
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
You heard that right, Pearl, and if you don't believe me, just ask House & Garden magazine. The idea is that you hide your recyclable junk in this nice stuff until somebody takes it away.
This new development puts me, as you might imagine, in the Dark Ages of recycling.
My equipment - in the basement for all to see - consists of a can-smashing device on the wall and four plastic buckets, one each for cans, clear glass, colored glass and plastic.
I thought I was doing pretty good. I always remember to check for these little arrows on the bottom of plastic stuff, and I think I know what HDPE means.
But, no, I don't have an attractive $60 newspaper bundler, which has an elevated base, which means you can get the string around the papers easier.
Me? I pull two ugly, paint-stained sawhorses close together. I pile the papers on them and slip the string though space between them. It may not be inspiring, but it works.
Sometimes these bundles fall apart in the shopping center parking lot, but this is not the fault of the sawhorses or the method.
But let's get into the big-ticket stuff here. There is the set of three stackable birch drawers decorated with balls. The picture of this wonder indicates that an open drawer is holding plastic bottles.
If you don't want your neighbors looking at your plastic bottles, this little wonder is yours for three thousand clams.
We put all our plastic, metal and glass stuff in a plastic grocery bag that hangs on a nail in the pantry just below the vacuum cleaner bags. We figure that if anybody is nosy enough to look in the pantry, it's all right with with us.
Moving on here, we come to the $1,900 quilted stainless steel kitchen island with the removable butcher-block top. This all right, I guess, if you happen to like quilted kitchen islands.
From the picture of this essential household item, it appears that brown bottles are stored in it.
I would assume that anybody who had $1,900 to spend for something like that would drink an awful lot of imported beer.
For people on fixed incomes, there are these oak bins that cost only $230 - which would buy an awful lot of imported beer.
Sure, it would be nice to have people come in and rave about our $3,000 set of birch boxes for hiding plastic bottles.
We'll remain simple recyclers, however. We spent almost that much on a new heating system. It's very impressive, although it is not decorated with balls.
by CNB