Oscar the Grouch and
the Recycle Nazi
Janet Kuypers
10/20/19, written on
Clean Up the Earth Day
Whenever I would walk
down the streets
in Chicago,
or even when we
would drive down
those city streets,
I’d see litter scattered
alongside those roads,
everything from plastic bags
to water bottles
to soda cans
to liquor bottles
or even plastic cups
from fast food joints —
like their packaging
was just as useless
and frivolous
so that fast food,
so why would they
bother to think of even
throwing away their trash.
And we Americans
think we’re above
all of this trash,
and inside we’re
disgusted by
the mess we see,
and we shake our heads
with disdain, and then
do nothing about it.
So I contend
that if we don’t like it
and just pass it every day
and do nothing about it,
then in a way
we are as at fault
as the ones
who made this mess,
dirtying the Earth.
So now...
Whenever I would walk
to my husband’s office
to visit him, I would
bring a plastic bag,
so that as I walked
I could pick up recyclable
trash to recycle it all
when I got home.
He made fun of me
for doing this,
but if I don’t like
the trash by the street
and I do nothing
about it when
I walk right past it,
I have to ask if that
makes me any better.
My husband would
later say that he
wasn’t making fun of me,
but underlyingly
was a bit jealous
of the fact that
I choose to do this.
But then...
it comes to the point
where he wonders
if I’m the recycle Nazi,
because I won’t recycle
only when I’m walking
down the street.
Because if I see
a smashed aluminum can
in a parking lot,
I’ll want to pick it up
and place it in
my car’s recycle bag.
And of course it’s dirty,
of course it seems improper,
but it’s more improper
for this mess
to be left
in the first place.
And when did we learn
to love trash so much?
We’re now Oscar the Grouch
on Sesame Street,
where everyone else
talks about trying
to get along, and us,
we’ve just gotten
so used to the filth
we can’t remember
it any other way.
But there is another way;
I knew people who made
greenhouses our of plastic
water bottles, you know,
to reduce, reuse and recycle —
where we become that recycle Nazi,
made fun of for doing the right thing.
Sure, let them pick on us.
That’s usually what happens
when we’re doing things right.
| 
