When Recycling Gets Difficult

There used to be a time in my life when my apartment was spotless. There wouldn't be a dish in the sink. There never was more than two loads of laundry in my dirty clothes pile. And there certainly wasn't junk mail stacked on every square inch of my countertops.

Today I woke up to a dirty apartment and started compiling a mental to-do list as I tried to sleep for just 15 more minutes. The thought of my messy surroundings had me out of bed earlier than anyone should rise on a Sunday morning.

My first task was to take out the trash and a much larger stack of recycling that had taken over the entire top of my refrigerator and burst over the sides of the two biggest sections of my kitchen counter. It's good to know I've adopted healthier habits for Mother Nature's sake. It's devastating to try and handle paper bags filled with miscellaneous tin cans, empty cereal boxes and months worth of outdated magazines.

After I got the trash and recycling — that took multiple trips — to the appropriate bins, I returned to realize the other counter in my apartment was spilling over with junk mail. Mixed in with non-junk mail. Things I need to sort and recycle and a select few that require action. Bed, Bath & Beyond flyers, Geico discount offers, an invitation to my alma mater's 100-year journalism school anniversary and stacks of home mailers from Chinese restaurants in about a 20-block radius.

My last apartment had a large recycling bin for things like those menus, the Geico offers and anything from Bed, Bath & Beyond right in the mailroom. This apartment does not, so these miscellaneous offers and waste of envelopes that never get opened make their way onto my counter, just about two steps from the top of my refrigerator — the place where all recycling ends up.

I've read in so many time-saving tip articles that going through your mail and sorting it instead of dropping it on a table or counter for later consumption is the way to go. I used to do this, and somehow I've gotten out of the habit.

Junk mail is dreadful, I'm learning. And sorting through it is even more dreadful. That's why an otherwise clean apartment is still filled with stacks of mail and more procrastination of this task is taking place as I type the last sentence of this post.