DATE: Friday, September 26, 1997            TAG: 9709250174

SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON   PAGE: 08   EDITION: FINAL 

COLUMN: OVER EASY 

SOURCE: Jo-Ann Clegg 

                                            LENGTH:   66 lines

WORLD WAR II STOMPER BECOMES A '90S RECYCLER

Please don't get me wrong here, I am not against recycling. It gives me a good feeling to know that those 17 extra pages in my phone bill will be turned into a trendy birthday card with the words ``made from recycled paper'' on the back.

Hey, I'm a member of the generation that brought recycling to a whole new level, those who were school kids during World War II. When President Roosevelt said we needed scrap metal I became my family's official stomper.

With a little practice I could reduce a Campbell soup can to a half inch slab quicker than you could say ``Zip your lip and save a ship.''

I hauled newspapers to the fire station for recycling, used the back of my arithmetic paper to practice my penmanship and stood over my mother to make sure that every single drop of bacon grease was saved to cook something else in.

Getting back to the present, I love the new one-can-fits-all recycling can that was delivered to my house while I was on vacation. It brings back happy memories. My cousin Lee was driving a VW bug of about the same size and color when he and three of his high school friends came to visit us in California in 1971.

I figure if you tipped the can on its side, added some windows, a couple more wheels, an antenna and a few stick-on flowers it would be pretty hard to tell the two apart.

So if I was hooked on recycling at an early age and I'm fond of Big Blue, what is my problem? I'll tell you what the problem is. I can't figure out how to organize the stuff that's supposed to go into the can.

At first I ran to the back door to drop each can, bottle, envelope and package in the bin as soon as I emptied them. Do you know how many trips that took? Do you have any idea how much Coke we drink, how many pieces of junk mail we get? I felt like Mickey Mouse emptying water pails when he played the Sorcerer's Apprentice in ``Fantasia.'' No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get ahead of the problem.

Then I started stacking items to be recycled on the kitchen counter. I began at 7 one morning and by 9 I had buried the coffee maker, food processor and toaster oven. Actually, I didn't exactly bury the toaster oven, I sort of incorporated it when I made my first run to the yard.

Fortunately, I discovered my mistake before the end of the day. Unfortunately, Bill was not a happy camper when he had to dump the contents and retrieve the oven.

My next approach was to designate the large trash can in the laundry room as the indoor recycling bin. That worked until I was faced with the prospect of what to do with the laundry room trash, which normally filled it. So far as I know, there is no market for dryer lint, vacuum cleaner residue, soap scum or used fabric softener sheets.

Oh, and have I mentioned the newspapers? We amass approximately three tons a week in this house. When we're not using the fireplace I stack them on the hearth. When the pile reaches the mantle, we move them out. The other day Bill came to me with a worried look on his face.

``I think our fireplace is sinking,'' he said. ``Do we have termites?'' I asked with alarm. ``No,'' he told me, ``I think it's a weight problem. Open the bin and hold the door, it's time to start hauling.''

I'm now at the point where I think the only answer is two trash containers in every room, one for regular junk and one for recycling. That's 10 rooms and three baths, 26 containers in all. Make that 28, including the laundry room.

Then I can empty the special cans, tip Big Blue over, add those wheels and windows and drive the whole mess off into the sunset. Things sure were a lot simpler back when I was stomping soup cans and doubling the mileage on my arithmetic papers.

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