If you've ever been to The Herald News, you've probably noticed the big green-and-yellow paper recycling bins in our parking lot. They're not just for our papers; I've seen community members dropping off their recycling, too.
The bins should confirm for you that I'm not the only Herald News staff trying to do the right thing. We got a great example of that Saturday, when business writer Cindy Cain and her son, Tyler, took part in the DuPage River Sweep near Knoch Knolls Park in the Will County portion of Naperville.
"We found a tire, candy wrappers, plastic grocery bags, metal pole, roll of carpet and pop cans and cups," Cindy said. "My proudest moment was lying on a half submerged tree trunk to get leverage to pull out the tire. It was full of water and mud, so it was heavy." (Guess all the lunch-time workouts actually paid off.)
According to The Conservation Foundation, "Organized by the DuPage River Coalition, a volunteer project of The Conservation Foundation, more than 6,000 volunteers have removed nearly 180 tons of garbage from DuPage County streams since 1991."
Cindy was positively glowing on Monday, because it was the sort of do-gooder activity where you can immediately see the good you're doing.
Cindy plans to make it an annual outing, with son in tow, I'm guessing, and hopes to do the Illinois River sweep also.
You may have noticed some, well, green leanings from Cindy.
She's not the sort of business writer who gets hung up on stock prices and efficiency reports. Instead, she's likely to find the "vegetarian hippie" angle.
A recent story about Tezak's funeral home included a section about green funerals (yes, I want that) and Thursday's resale shop story talked about the eco-friendly aspects of buying used.
Cindy is the person who taught me the phrase "triple bottom line." Wikipedia explains it better than I do, but not better than Cindy does.
Essentially, it means businesses can profit by being green. And that helps everybody involved.