My Spouse Won't Commingle!

Our city is a full month into this new-fangled single-stream recycling and, frankly, this has not been my hoped-for Miracle of the Blue Bin.

Single-stream, for those still unaware or unconverted, allows for papers, plastics and metals to mix and mingle in perfect harmony regardless of the color of the recycling bin in which they reside.

Newspapers and tuna tins.

Milk jugs and junk mail.

Cardboard and soda cans living together!

Mass hysteria!

Those are not the only taboos now broken. Formerly forbidden items such as egg cartons, paperboard milk and juice containers and non-corrugated cardboard have made their peace with us, too. The city's new recycling company will gladly dump them all into their white trucks with a bone-shattering thunder that, while quite similar to the dumping sound made by the city's old recycling company, now shocks you awake around 6 a.m. once a week with a far more environmentally friendly type of bed-wetting fear.

Everyone loves single-stream recycling. Environmentalists cheer because it should hasten efforts to save our planet and precious resources. City officials do their public happy dances because they expect it to save about $300,000 a year.

Yet, single-stream recycling fails in one grave way. It is not saving my marriage.

My Love and I are nowhere near an appearance with Judge Toler on "Divorce Court," mind you. But a spot on an upcoming "Jerry Springer" episode called "My Spouse Won't Commingle!" -- well, that's a possibility.

See, we each have our foibles. Among mine is using words such as "foibles." Among hers is not being able to separate trash from treasure when it comes to the good of our planet.

Many a time I have wandered into the garage to find a lipstick-smeared Aquafina bottle in a bin clearly marked "For Mixed Paper Recycling Only" or seethed at a shampoo bottle in our bathroom receptacle. I'm obsessive compulsive that way, sort of the Adrian Monk of household recycling, though my perky blond sidekick is a 3-year-old Labrador retriever.

That's why I held such hope for the single-stream movement. I posted the city's detailed brochure on what is and isn't recyclable on the cabinet nearest our kitchen trash. I explained to My Love that nearly everything now went to the recycling bin, key exceptions being foodstuffs normally consumed by humans or non-food stuffs abnormally consumed by our dog, such as batteries, crayons and compact discs.

Best laid plans of mice and husbands, they say.

"Honey," I said, returning from the bins one morning, "this pizza box has to go in the trash."

"What? I thought pizza boxes were recyclable now."

"Only if they aren't grease stained," I said, "and that's a near impossibility given our children's passion for pepperoni and bacon."

Another day she asked whether a plastic berry container was recyclable. I turned to Thing 1, my 9-year-old daughter, at the counter and asked her to tell us what numbers were now good for recycling.

"One to seven," she said with nary a pause. "It used to only be ones and twos."

"What number is it?" I asked my wife, a woman who, for fun, will compound interest on her investments in her head.

"A number two," she said, and sighed a sigh worthy of a word bubble in a "Peanuts" comic strip.

Which reminds me -- dear readers, please do your part. Once you've finished with this column, recycle it appropriately by Digging it, Stumbling it, Tweeting it and so on.

That's the advantage of digital publishing -- my words no longer line canaries' cages.