My Einstein Whinestein

Energy is neither created, nor destroyed. That's what Mr. Einstein told us. But just like free will, it's what you do with that energy that really matters.

I was taking my Diet Dr. Pepper can to the lunch room the other day to drop it into the big plastic barrel with the can-sized hole in the top. It's the place where anyone who has an environmental bone in their body takes their cans and recycles them.

I dropped it in and turned to leave. A woman who works not far from me had just finished lunch. She approached the trash can and recycling can inches away from it, then dropped her trash, and her aluminum can in the trash. I was so angry...

Not sure if recycling instead is a good thing? Read this. You don't have to be a wacked-out tree-hugging environmentalist to realize that it just plain makes sense. In 2002, we recycled enough cans so as to save the equivalent to 15 billion barrels of crude. That's a lot of oil. And that kind of behavior can make Americans less dependent on foreign-drilled energy sources.

But back to my co-worker. She's a degreed professional who has no excuse but to know that recycling her can was wise, tossing it dumb. How can she have all that education and still be so stupid?

So while energy can neither be created or destroyed, it CAN be recyled and used again. We have the free will to do whatever we wish. And I wish we'd be a little smarter on things like this.

So uh...do you recycle?