Evil, of the banal variety

Today I wandered into the recycling room in my building to drop off some boxes and other bits.  What I saw isn't really surprising, but it did make me rage inside.

A suitcase.  In the recycling bin.

Because suitcases are recycling, right?  And the garbage bin is a whole six meters away, so who could be expected to throw it in there, when it could be parked on the recycling bin instead?

I love how the diagrams down below show all the things that are *supposed* to be recycled, but the suitcase tosser couldn't even be bothered to look down for a minute to notice.

It is actually a double whammy, because when garbage like this gets tossed in the recycling there isn't enough room for the real recycling and then the real recycling gets tossed in the garbage!  Buildings like mine have a real problem with this because more and more things are recyclable but our recycling room is the same size, leading to overflowing bins and enormous mess.  I am sure a ton of recycling goes into the trash just because trying to find someplace to put it in the recycling room is such a problem.

My initial answer to the problem was that I would put on some shades, black clothes, a fake earbud / phone attachment in one ear, and stand there looking dangerous and like a dangerous government official.  Then when people put the wrong stuff in the bin I would yell at them and tell them to do it right.  I actually have done this before (without the costume...) at Elli's school when dealing with six year olds who had no idea what stuff was recycling and what was not.

It is a sad state of affairs that adults are too lazy to figure that stuff out for themselves.  They actually *do* need someone to stand around educating them because they apparently can't be assed to do it without some kind of threat.  Boo humans!