Thursday, July 17, 2008

Vegas Excess

Now, I am not the most green person in the world, but I do my part. I don't like being bombarded by green signs everywhere telling me to only take what I need, etc. I got a little annoyed with all of that in San Francisco. There wasn't one sign about conservation in Las Vegas. Vegas is very posh. Gold, glitter, lights, and glam everywhere. No recycling anywhere. Everyone is carrying around a plastic bottle of water, and all those bottles just end up in the trash. Most of the time I was using my aluminum SIGG bottle (see, I'm doing my part), but when I had an empty plastic bottle I noticed the only place to put it was the trash. I was a little shocked. Vegas is in the desert. You need to keep hydrated. So you'd think they'd recycle at least just water bottles. Maybe they do in the burbs...just not on the strip...but there were hundreds, maybe thousands of bottles a day going into the trash! I was just surprised.
Water bottles weren't the only thing I noticed going into the trash. So many things are one time use. At the nail salon they told us if we didn't want the nail file it would go into the trash. Nothing is used twice. At my spa treatment I used a loofah mitt to clean off the salt. At the end of the treatment it went into the trash. I didn't want it, but it just seems like so much waste.
So there I was, Miss GreenonlyifIfeellikeit, bitching that there wasn't a recycling bin anywhere. I felt kinda guilty throwing those bottles in the trash. I guess I should have said something to the hotel management. They sent me an email survey. Maybe I'll mention it there.

1 comment:

Team Serrins Springfield said...

My guess is that it doesn't really go with the whole "spend, live now" type vibe that Vegas has going on to do any recycling. They want you to feel that your money and time and energy are endless and so is the world's.

A place where I can't understand not having a recycling bin? My GYM! This is a national (actually international) chain of gyms with about 10 just in Austin and there's not a recycling bin in sight. I bet the city of Austin would be happy to partner with a big gym chain and get the plastic bottles into recycling. But I send e-mail suggestion after e-mail suggestion which as far as I can tell go into some corporate spam filter...