Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Armpit of Texas

Dear Houston,

Every so often, a storm will come into the Gulf, and we'll get a strong wind from the southeast.

"Ugh," people will say. "It smells like Houston."

Now it's beginning to make sense why Houston smells so bad. According to the New York Times, Houston is trashy.

Houstonians may say they're too "independent" to recycle; I think they're just too lazy.

In addition to citing a backwards mentality for the city's poor recycling rates, Houston blames lack of money due to the expense of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and the logistical difficulties of trying to coordinate recycling programs in a sprawling city with no zoning laws. Considering that (according to Wikipedia) the Houston area has a bigger economy than Austria, Poland or Saudi Arabia, I have my doubts that Houston is truly hurting that badly for cash (or, for that matter, civil engineers to figure out a way to work around the zoning issues).

C'mon, Houston. If you were really of the "Old West" mentality, you wouldn't whine so much. Reduce already.

Your friend,
Jane

1 comment:

SavingDiva said...

Haha! I really laughed hard after reading this. I haven't been to Houston in years, but the title made me laugh!

I grew up in an extremely small town, and there were recycling facilities. It's hard to imagine a large city like Houston can't get there crap together.