Recycling

One Friday afternoon, Miss Brown’s third grade class stayed after school; we were served vanilla ice cream in Dixie cups. All hail the annual recycling champions at Noble Elementary School.

We’ve come a long way since the yearly newspaper recycling event; a few days at Casa Lanzarotti, I see we can recycle further.

There are three recycling bins under the kitchen window labeled: Mucca (cow), Galline (chicken), and Compost (compost). Next to the bins hangs a wire basket collecting eggshells. And underneath the bins is a cupboard with traditional recycling: glass, aluminum, cardboard, and steel.

The cows are vegans. They get cheated in their veggie and fruit rubbish from the competing vegan household eaters , namely Maria and me. We make no secrets about sneaking into the cow-bin to steal a discarded green carrot top, cauliflower stem, broccoli leaf or an apple core.

The chickens, by comparison, enjoy a good steak – or at least the spit out pieces. They get served refuse animal products: skin, cartilage, fat, gristle, and egg shell dust (no bin competition here).

I sit on the stainless steel counter (it’s amazing what one gets away with being a gimp) and crush discarded eggshells. The shells, rich in calcium, must be pulverized into powder; otherwise, the clever chickens will learn to recognize egg shells and peck at their own babies robbing us of an omelet (i.e., egg competition).

I pound 3 pounds of eggshells and drink my yummy tea: a bin-salvaged orange peel immersed in hot water with fresh ground nutmeg and a cinnamon stick.

This is better than vanilla ice-cream; who knew recycling tasted so good!