I had a parent teacher conference with my kids teacher this week and the teacher asked me if I was interested in recycling the schools trash.  I didn’t quite understand what exactly I was supposed to do until I realized that the school my kids go to has stopped their recycling program and they were now trying to push that job onto the parents.

I gave the teacher a sympathetic look but I informed the teacher that the city had just sent out notices that they were suspending their recycling pick up program due to higher fuel costs, low participation and tight city budgets.

I’m not sure if the two things are related but I suspect that the city wasn’t picking up the schools recycling material any more and they didn’t want to deal with the hassle of dealing with trash anymore.

I suspect that as city & state budgets grow tighter because of the credit crisis and housing mess that more and more cities will begin to cut back their recycling programs amongst other services.  It’s too bad that the environment needs to be a casualty of the housing mess.   The unintended consequences are unfolding in dramatic ways each week!