Am I Blue?

I am trying desperately to be blue. Blue is the local term used here to refer to recycling and water conservation, but with apologies to Kermit the Frog, it's not easy being blue.
St. John's doesn't have recycling pick up with garbage. There are depots that you can take your refundable containers to, but they don't take non refundable items. So containers like juice jugs or pop cans can go, but soup cans and milk cartons for example are just tossed into the regular garbage stream. Plastic shopping bags can be taken back to the grocery stores, but plastic packaging is garbage. I gotta tell ya, after nearly 15 years of recycling indoctrination in both Vangroovy and Nova Scotia I am having a serious moral crisis about this.
At first there was denial. "Somebody must take these items somewhere" I thought. So off I go to a depot, and most of my material is kindly rejected by the ladies who do take some of my bottles and give me 75 cents in return. They didn't want my cardboard. "Nobody is taking cardboard, dear" they said.
So I drive around for a few days with all the boxes we used for moving in the back of the truck wondering what to do. As luck would have it, the neighbours got a new washer and had to dispose of the old one last week. If you have large items like this, you can call for special pick up. Old appliances are called white goods, and two guys in a big truck came by to do a white goods pickup. Interestingly enough, when the truck appeared, all of a sudden people were emerging from their houses up and down the street with other large metal things to go too. It was like the "Bring out your dead" scene in Monty Python movie. Broken metal chairs, tables, rods, you name it appeared and went onto the truck. One guy tried to get rid of a mattress, but the driver stopped him saying that was a different pickup. He looked at me and said "It took 50 years but they are starting to sort it now."
I thought, "this guy will know where I can take my recyclables," so I asked.
He didn't know. He suggested a depot on Elizabeth Avenue.
So off I went again, thinking maybe it was a different kind of depot than I had been to already.
It was mayhem. People were lined up waiting to be served, as every container is counted and sorted by a depot employee for people to get their refund. This takes some time. Adding to the confusion that day was a sign posted on the door that said 'Not Taking Glass Today, Sorry for the Inconvenience'
While I am waiting in line, a guy comes by to empty the paper bin. He sees my paltry collection of metal glass and plastic and says "We don't take any of that. That stuff is recyclable everywhere else in Canada, but it is not recyclable here. We're 20 years behind everywhere else." He is outraged. So I ask him about my cardboard. "No cardboard, just paper" he said.
I decide that this is absurd, so I go to the main municipal depot thinking I can at least get rid of it there. When I get there I realise that the main municipal depot in St. John's is not really accessible to members of the public. It is only for those big trucks that drive around doing pick ups. Having come this far though, I put on my biggest ditsy-girl smile, drive up to the kiosk window and using the thickest Nova Scotian accent I could muster, ask where I can drop off my cardboard. The guy inside didn't know. But my charms must have worked a bit because he offers to make some calls and find out. Seven calls later, (and with three large trucks lined up behind me as I block the entrance to the depot) he gives me an address of a recycling centre that will take cardboard.
Off I go.
Depot #4 is also mayhem, and it also has the sign that states No Glass Today. An employee directs me to where I can dump my cardboard on the floor, but it isn't like I can back the truck up to a door and unload. I am parked in the only free spot across the parking lot, and to deposit my cardboard I have to weave though the lines of people waiting for their refundables to be sorted.
I arrive at the same time as a woman in a mini van that is packed full of large plastic bags stuffed with bottles and cans. She is accompanied by a teen in a soccer uniform who is practicing her bored look. We take turns walking in and out the door several times. Interpreting the hundreds of containers and the surly helper as clues, I ask if she is with a group, thinking that she is co-ordinating a bottle drive fundraiser for the team. The woman gives me the look that is usually reserved for hairy men in dirty singlets and says, "No." A guy in line snickers.
Ok then.
More trips, back and forth, in and out.
Finally she warms up to me, and starts to chat as we pass. "They don't make it easy to actively recycle here. "
"No kidding," I think.
She points to the No Glass sign, "Some days it's no glass, sometimes it is paper or plastic."
I tell her this is my fourth attempt to get rid of cardboard.
She tuts her disapproval.
I'm finished. I don't have to wait for a refund so I leave her, waiting in line with her 9 large bags of recycling at her feet.
Now I'm in the resignation stage. I still automatically wash out a can, and then wince when I toss it in the garbage, along with the food that can't go into the backyard composter. There is no green bin pickup here either.