The mysteries of recycling in Mexico City

Before we moved here, my husband and I recycled pretty much everything we could. Our Dallas apartment building didn’t have a recycling bin, so we bought one on the Internet and stuck it on our sun porch. A few times a month we hauled everything off, in our car, to a special city dumpster.

Mexico City has no such dumpsters, at least none that I’ve heard of. Two recycling “businesses” operate a few neighborhoods away — they take paper and cans — but they require a cab ride.

I decided the Earth was worth it, and had a few bags of paper products collecting in my kitchen. My cleaning lady saw them and asked if they were trash.

“To recycle?” I said, hoping I was using the right word in Spanish.

She looked at me strangely.

“Doesn’t your trash man sort them?”

I didn’t know. Unlike lots of other neighborhoods in Mexico City, where residents place their trash directly on the truck, our building has bins in the basement. We toss our stuff there, and once every few days, the portero — Pablo! — drags the bins out to the curb for the trashmen to unload. I have no idea who our trashmen are, or how often them come.

So Lola explained that the trashmen will sort through your glass and cans, and basically keep what they can sell.

This was interesting to me. Was it technically recycling? Maybe not. But it did put money in someone’s pocket, and no doubt they needed it. I guess that was good enough for me.

Now — I’m kind of ashamed to admit — we just throw everything away, hoping a clever trashman will find our used goods a home. (Or a clever portero… but we know that’s not going to happen.) We do return our 1-liter Victoria bottles to the convenience store for a small fee. But we don’t recycle anything else.

Because of that, I’ve now found it easier to use fabric softener, which I used to spurn in Dallas. (My justification: “My washer is so tiny! I can only wash like five things at a time! At least they can smell good.”) I gave into buying Lola’s preferred cleaning products, instead of making our own, like we used to. On the upside, I do wash and re-use all my Ziploc bags, and we have a healthy collection of cloth rags that we use — or try to use — instead of paper towels.

But I’m not the green girl I used to be.

HEALTH UPDATE: I’m feeling much better this morning. My doctor loaded me up with antibiotics, and says I should feel normal within a few days. Unfortunately I’m on a bland diet for a week — no chocolate, no alcohol, no chile, no coffee, no sweet bread, no dairy products. I’ve been surviving lately on caldo, cornflakes, maria cookies and bananas.