I recycle for the wrong reasons

I Loooove to recycle. It is kinda like a minor, selfish obsession. I wouldn't say that I am an incredibly 'green' person. I drive a Prius, and it may have become a competition between Aaron and I as to who can get the best gas mileage, and we cloth diapered our kids (more on that later), but none of these was directly out of a need to 'save the planet.'   

Recycling is something I grew up doing. Every now and then my mom and I would take our bottles and cans to a machine at Vons, crush them one by one and take home our gallon sized Ziploc bag full of nickels. It took forever and you ended up with 8 pounds of nickels, but I loved it. 

It's different now. I can't quite pin down the main motivation for doing it. I hate to admit that bettering the planet is just a happy coincidence. Does that make me a terrible person? Maybe...But I still recycle. Maybe I do it for the money, all $13.81 of it a 2-3 times a year that I think is free when really I spent it when the items were purchased in the first place. Maybe I do it because I NEED to organize and sort things. Maybe, Just maybe, I do it to off set the cardboard I threw away last week. 

All I know is that I do, religiously.

I secretly get happy when I buy soda knowing that I can add it to the recycling bin at some point.  This is NOT an attempt to push any sort of lifestyle or agenda. There is no judgement. It's about self reflection and the desire to really understand why I do the things I do. No one is forcing me to do it, but every now and then I spend about a 1-2 hours in the process of sorting and bagging recyclables, driving to the recycling center and dropping off everything. Luke comes with me sometimes. I asked him how  much money he thought we would get this time, " 100-10 monies." he said. Then when I asked what he thought we should do with the money, he said "Put it in my piggy bank." Done (split with his sister, of course).

Turning this

 Into this!

Maybe I do it for the tradition and while it is much more hands-off of a process now, it is still something that the kids can be a part of and see the reward after a little hard work and planning.