(More than) Fourinarow.net

Jack has been learning about recycling this week at school. We recycle at home, so he had a jump start on the concept, I think. He often helps Dan load up the recycling and take it over to the recycle center.

Yesterday, while I was trying to get ready for Girls’ Night Out (had a BLAST, btw), the kids were running around like banshees. Typical.

What was not typical, however, was that Jack was running around like a banshee carrying a 2-liter bottle of water. When I asked about it, he told me he was recycling the bottle.

Dan had left an empty soda bottle on the counter, ready to be put in the “plastics” box in the garage. When Jack spied it, he grabbed it, peeled the label off and filled it with water. (Why he was running around the house with it, I don’t really know.) Anyway, when I asked him about it, he told me he was recycling… he was turning the old soda bottle into a water jug. I suggested he put it in the fridge.

Surprisingly, he took my suggestion. After storing it, he informed me that he had put it in the wine rack that’s in the fridge for safe keeping. (Is it bad that my kid knows that that thingamajiggee is a wine rack?)

Anyway, after storing the soda/water bottle there was nothing more said. Until this morning.

I was upstairs putting together some things for an Uppercase Living party and I heard Dan asking the kids, “Who opened this bottle of soda?!?”

“I didn’t do it, Dad,” said Luke.

“It wasn’t me,” Jack said. “Someone else opened that bottle of soda. I just took the cap off.”

Even from upstairs, I could tell that it had dawned on Dan (because it dawned on me at the same time)… Jack had taken the cap off of a brand new bottle of Diet Coke and used it for his recycled water bottle. (We always throw the caps away since they aren’t recyclable.)

Just so you’re sure to understand: Jack went into the pantry, grabbed a brand new 2-liter bottle of Diet Coke, took the cap off (how he opened it, I don’t know) and put the cap onto the “recycled” bottle. He left the Diet Coke bottle – topless – on the floor of the pantry. Where it sat over night and into the next morning. Undisturbed. IT DIDN’T SPILL, Ladies and Gentlemen. Dan discovered it completely full. Minus the cap and completely flat, but completely full.

I don’t know about you, but I’m still having trouble believing it. My kids have trouble walking an ounce of water in a sippy cup across the room without spilling it.

As for the waste… was it really waste? It was just Diet Coke, after all – it’s not as if it had been 2 liters of Diet Dr. Pepper! THAT would have been a tragedy… all for the sake of recycling.