Recycling Is Beautiful: 2011

Continuing my celebration of Earth Day (a day late on this blog!), this is one of my favorite photos.

From a distance it looks like an abstract expressionist painting, perhaps a collage of images cut from printed materials.

Look a little more closely at the actual objects.

Yes, bottle caps, plastic water bottles, plastic containers, green glass, amber glass, cans, lids, pull-tabs, little bits and pieces of the refuse of our lives.

I stopped at the recycling drop-off on a sunny August Sunday morning, and the pile of mixed recyclable metal, glass and plastic that had been crushed was in an outdoor processing area, as big as my house, glittering and colorful as a pile of gemstones in the morning sunlight.