On Saturday evening this week, we were driving the few miles for what for us was the first event on the run-up to Christmas – the Winemakers Dinner at Wolf Mountain vineyard. It was a full moon with just a few clouds scudding along. But the combined light of uncountable stars and the moon were not enough to lift the darkness along the road. No streetlights for miles, and not that many houses. You could almost touch the dark – it was as if the very photons were being sucked up. That is the result of living in the country, you are a lot closer in some ways to how things must have been a hundred years ago. But we certainly enjoyed the dinner at Wolf Mountain, with a carefully selected wine to go with each course. Karl Boegner, the owner, was able to announce the results achieved at the prestigious San Francisco International Wine Competition – a Double Gold medal and a Gold medal.
In fact, Georgia has been doing pretty well in the wine medal stakes. USA wine production is dominated by California (88.5% of US production). Poor little Georgia only produces a miniscule 0.02% of the US wine. However, in the two leading US wine competitions, Georgia took a very commendable 17 medals out of the 5,000 at the San Francisco Wine Chronicle Competition, and 11 medals out of 3727 at the San Francisco International. 0.3% of the medals with 0.02% of the production – Georgia is clearly punching above its weight! I have laid away a few bottles of both the Double Gold and Gold medal winners
On the domestic front, we are still working away at unpacking and sorting out everything. After the rush to get ready for Thanksgiving, we have put away the pumpkins and autumn oriented items, starting to check what we have in the Christmas boxes downstairs. Some items (like all Lisa’s poinsettia crockery) has been unpacked a while. We needed to see what we have to decorate the Christmas tree. After the last few years in Ealing with an increasingly potbound little tree in a pot (carefully preserved for three years) we have decided to go for a “proper” big tree – but have we enough glittery things to prevent it looking rather naked? And as we unpack things, the mounds of paper and packing cases grow, which leads us on to recycling, and a moral dilemma.
Robin’s Thoughts on America
Continuing my intermittent Thoughts, Likes and Dislikes section, here’s my personally opinionated thought for this week on life in USA.
The Ethics of Recycling
I have mentioned in the past the issues around recycling. Coming from London where the local council have been taking an increasingly coercive approach to reducing general rubbish and increasing recycling, we are now in a place where the local authorities seem largely indifferent to recycling. Maybe this is because they don’t even collect the rubbish out where we are – we have a contract with a commercial pick-up firm. And we have a trash compactor in the kitchen to reduce the bulk of waste. In Lumpkin County, there is limited facilities for paper and cardboard (to which we have been a major contributor). Yin cans and very specific plastics are also accepted. And that is all. One category for which there are no recycling facilities in this county is glass. As far as I can establish, this is because there is little commercial demand for scrap glass, so it would cost the local taxpayers something to get rid of the glass, recycled or otherwise. We do have a certain amount of glass rubbish (you will not be amazed to hear that this is mostly empty wine bottles).
So when the number of cartons of empty boxes in the garage started to get a bit embarrassing, we cast around for alternative recycling options. And discovered that the two adjacent counties did have glass recycling facilities. We have now visited and used both Dawson County and Hall County facilities. But this raises a number of ethical issues, which worry me a little.
Is it really green to drive long distances to reach a recycling centre? Both the available centres are twenty miles or so away. At what point does the amount of petrol we consume getting there outweigh the good that recycling should do?
There are no glass recycling facilities in Lumpkin County for economic reasons, as explained above. But the same market laws apply in the neighbouring counties. So, unless there are hidden forces of which I know little, by recycling my glass there, am I imposing a charge upon the hapless taxpayers in Hall & Dawson counties for their public spirited attitudes?
I believe that the workers in the Dawson recycling centre are convicted prisoners. I cannot imagine any other reason why that wear the distinctively odd clothes that they do. Is it right thing to support forced labour of this nature? Maybe they get some form of payment or it helps with their rehabilitation into society, I just don’t know.
So, can anyone offer suggestions onto the rightness of recycling over county lines? Your thoughts, please.