Not regularly scheduled programming...

Okay, so I know this is a family blog with pictures for the grandparents and friends scattered around the country but I just had to share these two things. They're not my normal blog fare but please just bear with me. Last night I came across a blog out of New Zealand where a couple made a commitment to go "rubbish free" for one year. I thought it was an interesting idea and went downstairs to share it with Doug. We obviously would not be able to go a year with no trash...I don't know many people who could, but we are one trash producing family. If nothing else I thought it would be fun to take some of the ideas that these folks had used and reduce the amount of waste coming from our home. What followed was a rather heated discussion. Doug was sure that these folks were lying as there "was no way" they could do that. We read a little about their initial plan at the beginning of the year which involved recycling, reusing, trade, etc. Unfortunately, we got caught up on their choice to burn some of their green matter and everything went downhill from there. The conversation soon turned to our recycling or lack thereof, whereupon Doug proceeded to tell me that Lincoln operates a "One Big Bin" system. Apparently, you just dump all of your trash into your regular bin. It all gets picked up and then taken to a "Materials Recovery Facility" where they go through your trash and sort it for you. Now it was my turn to say there "was no way" they would rip open people's garbage bags to discern what needed to go where. Anyway, to make a long story long :), I went online and came across this video. Apparently, they really do all those things. The video is educational and worth watching if you have a moment. I couldn't figure out how to embed the video, so here's the link:
http://www.onebigbin.com/index.php

Speaking of videos, when I signed on to check my e-mail this morning I came across this little gem on Yahoo!. It was too funny not to share. Californians beware!