Garbage As Long Division

Being a responsible world citizen is no easy task when it comes to what we throw out. Used to be, you  tossed garbage into one bin and a truck came along once a week and carted it off to a garbage dump. Everyone knew where The Dump was, generally, but nobody saw it - or wanted to. You could smell the site driving by and know it was there because of the seagulls circling overhead but we did not see the hills of it piling up. There were pretty rows of trees hiding it all. We heard that it eventually became necessary to truck garbage off to another forgettable site well away from the city. But one day, even that became a problem. About that time, we became responsible folk and began recycling our waste.  Being responsible has its work. Where I live, there is an air-conditioned garbage room and in it, are two huge red  bins, a bunch of blue bins and a green one. One of the big red ones, is for garbage, the other, for cardboard, while the blue ones are there to hold  "recyclables". The green one is for compostable things. It's all very organized. I'm not. I am a learner in this new garbage matter. I believe in the whole process and its purpose which is survival of living things, but I have to admit it is confusing at times. I always thought paper was paper but not in the new garbage system. There is paper and there is paper. The tissues go into compost while newspaper goes into recycle unless it is used to wrap food waste and then it goes into compost. There is also division of plastics. Not all plastics are equal. Some are for recycle and others are garbage. None are compostable. I find myself looking under the sink at my three containers and going "eeny meeny miney moh" before popping what used to be called just garbage, into one of the sacks. I have to refer often to the taped list on the inside of my cupboard door that defines which kind of garbage is which. I do a lot walking about with tissues in one hand and old newspapers in the other taking these to their rightful places for discard. It has added another complication to my life. A good one. Now, I am not complaining, I am just saying.