Dear Roseburg,

Yes, I know: I’m the new guy and maybe I should wait awhile before I offer you any specific suggestions about how to make this a better place. But I guess I just can’t help myself! Here’s my idea for the day.

Recycling. We can do better.

This is what I mean…

When I first moved into these apartments in mid-July, you’ll recall that I noted the dearth of recycling bins available. I was sure I was missing something. I mean, yes, I found the recycling bins; it’s just that there appeared to be only a very, very few, very, very small, garbage-can-size containers available to handle the recycling for about 150 apartments! How could that be?

Well, I found out. When I was at the Douglas County Fair last month, I had the opportunity to chat with the county employee who handles the local recycling. He let me know that the apartment complex is within the law (by basically doing the minimum allowable). Apparently they are obligated to provide a way to recycle, it’s just that there are no specifications regarding the scope or seriousness of the effort.

So, this is legal. Wow, too bad. I asked: so, how about if I want to recycle items on my own that aren’t accommodated by the inadequate apartment-complex bins? Where do I go, and how do I do that?

I knew there were a couple of recycling “centers” around town. I had found one of them when I wanted to recycle the newsprint packing-material from my move; this was a small, unattended facility in a parking lot, and I had stuffed the material into the bin marked “newspaper” there. I was somewhat mystified by the very modest nature of this place, but it handled what I needed it to at the time. I kept wondering where “recycling central” was, though. Surely, in this day and age, a city the size of Roseburg had more ambition than I was discovering!

However, I found out at the fair, not only was my path of discovery on track, but that it was really worse than I had imagined. For example, all recycling items need to be carefully sorted here (we’re still separating brown glass from green, for example), and then physically carted to one of the recycling places. Which, only a very small percentage of us here in Roseburg, or in Douglas County, actually do. There is no curbside recycling, with intermingling of items to be recycled. (Portland! I miss you!)