What will archeologists find here?

I once had a professor who was fond of going on archeological digs in the Middle East each summer, where, under the hot sun, he would help to excavate clues about the people who used to live there. On the wall of his classroom wall he had mounted a vertical "slice" consisting of the materials he had found -- pottery shards, for the most part, that helped to unlock information about the former cultures in the region.

My professor's slice of an ancient culture makes me wonder what archaeologists 2,000 years hence will find when they dig in the soil of northeastern Ohio, especially in the vicinity of the Allied Waste landfill. It is the hope of the Interfaith Committee on the Environment that the next layers will not contain any items that are recyclable, and, to that purpose, we are focusing this month on educating Oberlin's citizens about the many opportunities to keep our so-called "garbage" out of the landfill.

* Curbside Recycling Program. The most visible -- and audible -- recycling program happens on the day of your regular garbage pickup, when the city collects separated recyclables. I must admit I enjoy waking to the satisfying cacophony of materials being dumped into the recycling truck. Containers are available free of charge at 69 S. Main St. Into them, Oberlin's citizens put clear and colored glass containers, aluminum and steel cans, and plastic bottles labeled #1 or #2. When rain is not expected, we can also place bagged or bundled newspaper and brown or white flattened corrugated cardboard, although my husband and I sometimes just play it safe and take these items directly to Allied Waste, a short distance west from the stop sign at 511 and old Route 20.

* Paper. What about the avalanche of paper that comes into our homes? Local public schools are raising money through placing Abitibi recycling bins in their parking lots, and the catalogs, magazines, office paper, and newspapers that are left there are sold to raise money for school projects. But you can be creative about other destinations for the magazines. For example, we pass some along to friends who have a special interest in the subject matter -- New Yorkers to neighbors who are avid readers, Opera News to a talented singer, and our monthly copy of The Sun to Mudd Library. As for telephone books, Lorain County has arranged for them to be recycled at Burger King shortly after the new phone books arrive at your door.

* Art Materials. Others often welcome items you would otherwise toss out. Talk with the preschool teacher or art teacher of your choice to find out what they might find useful for children's art and crafts. I keep a box in our basement of "treasures" for the Early Childhood Center, for example. In it I place flower catalogs, bits of cotton that once nestled in the tops of vitamin bottles, pieces of wrapping paper too small to reuse for even the smallest gift, bits of ribbon, odd pieces of fabric, colorful plastic bottle tops, paper towel tubes, the plastic net that once contained grapefruit or oranges, and anything else that catches my fancy. I know from experience that teachers are inventive when it comes to offering materials to students: a boy we knew brought a single outgrown sneaker into our children's elementary school one day, and the next week it appeared in a collage outside the principal's office.

* Packaging Materials: Take your packing peanuts and bubble wrap to The UPS Store or Ginko Gallery, and check out your local merchants, among them the Oberlin Market, Ben Franklin, Watsons, the Jones Farm stand at the Saturday Farmers Market, if you are seeking homes for your old plastic shopping bags. Better still, use your own cloth bag; it is stronger and will hold much more. Now, when the cashier asks "paper or plastic?" the answer is "I have my own." My cloth bags are stronger than any paper or plastic the store can provide, and, moreover, they remind me of the fishnet bag I took to the shops in Paris when I was a student there, for at that time providing a bag for customers was unheard of. Increasingly, I am noticing that local stores themselves are selling shopping bags. I recently bought two at IGA, one of which is insulated, a blessing when you need to bring home a pint of ice cream on a hot day. As for other packaging, Oberlin Market has a basket on top of the refrigerator for old yogurt containers (clean, of course), and will gladly accept old egg cartons, as will the Jones Farm.

* Prepackaging: One way to avoid recycling the packaging that accumulates in the garage or basement is, of course, to avoid packaging altogether, the way the merchants in Paris did when I was a student there. The more we can buy in bulk (using those old yogurt containers, for example), the less we'll have to recycle. And perhaps consumers can influence companies that over-package their wares to consider new ways to protect their goods, using recyclable materials like the compostable "peanuts" used by some companies now.

* Clothing: Old clothes may become new ones for someone else. If you have children, there is the obvious tactic of passing outgrown, gently-worn clothing to the smaller children you know who are just the right size. As for adult clothing, check out second-hand clothing stores in the area, or take your castoffs to Goodwill, the Salvation Army, or the yellow collection bins parked in various parking lots in our area. If you have vintage clothing, the college or public school drama departments might be interested. And did you know that the Oberlin Seniors take old denim jeans and tear them into strips for weaving very attractive throw rugs?

* Metal: On a recent trip to Watsons Hardware to buy a chain for our hammock, I learned the store welcomes metal -- any kind -- which they add to their own collection of odds and ends, like the link they had to cut open for me.

* Oil, toxic waste, electronics, fluorescent bulbs, etc. Take your used motor oil to Midas Auto Service Experts, 90 S. Main St., and old batteries to the battery recycling buckets at Ben Franklin, the city manager's office, CVS, the Oberlin Public Library, Watson's Hardware, and Main Office Copy Shop. Compact fluorescent bulbs can be dropped off at Watson's Hardware or the city offices. Keep your eyes open for organizations that will collect castoff cell phones and computers and pass them on to those who cannot afford them.

* Lorain County Solid Waste Management District holds special recycling days for the following items: tires, hazardous waste, electronics, fluorescent bulbs and ballasts. You can visit their website --www.loraincounty.us/solidwaste for a schedule, or call them at 1-800-449-5463 for further information. At the hazardous waste collection day, for example, materials collected include corrosive materials like batteries of various kinds, flammable materials like turpentine and paint thinner, reactive materials like certain fertilizers and pool chlorine, and toxic materials like rat poison, mercury, fluorescent light bulbs, outdated medications, and weed and insect killers.

* Kitchen and garden. If you have a compost bin or pile, vegetable and fruit food scraps can become good soil for your garden instead of rotting in the landfill. The city provides a very good information sheet on composting, and information is also available at the Jones Farm or at one of the local nurseries. Transforming yard waste -- as well as appropriate kitchen waste -- into a resource is an economical way to build our Ohio clay into something more welcoming to your favorite plants, and it also is deeply satisfying.

In fact, all these ideas can be satisfying. For, as we are doing these things, we are imitating the pattern embedded in nature, where nothing is "garbage" and everything is reused, giving life to something else. As we learn to reuse and recycle, we are recovering valuable resources, lessening greenhouse gas emissions, and reducing our reliance on landfills. As a result, we hope future archaeologists who might one day dig in a site called "Oberlin" and reach the strata of the first decades of our century, will not exclaim: "What odd people they must have been, to create such a mess!"

If readers have further information about recycling opportunities in the Oberlin area, ICE would be interested in hearing from you. (For example, has anyone discovered an organization or person who has a use for the plastic pill bottles from the pharmacy?) Contact davidasnyder@hotmail.com.