Recycling

by Amanda Taylor

Recycling seems to be a very important issue in Cagli, Italy. It has been my observation that people – especially the older folks – put a lot of work into it. I saw an elderly women yesterday carrying many very carefully sorted heavy bags down the steep hill to the six large garbage bins. They are color coded according to what content belongs in them. Some need cardboard, some glass, and some are for the excess from what I can understand. This sense of doing things for a greater purpose for the community is an extra step that people seem to be willing to take.

I was carrying a small bag of trash down to the garbage bin area and was about to put it all in one bin as I would usually do, but an elderly lady came over and very intensely corrected me. She took a glass bottle from my bag and pointed to the correct bin. She placed the empty wine bottle in the glass recycling bin making eye contact with me the whole time. I could not here what she was saying as she walked away but I assume that she was not pleased at my recycling habits. From this experience I understand the Italian’s relationship to nature to be that humans are the keepers of nature in that we must take care of it.