Random Loudoun County Thoughts

As the title implies, this post doesn't have much of theme except that it deals with Loudoun County, VA.

With Earth Day less than 24 hours behind me, I decided to continue my commitment to getting out of my car as much as possible and walk up to the nearby Target. The stroll under a cloudless, deep blue sky was alongside a steady stream of cars whizzing by me. I had gotten about half-way to the store when a dear friend of mine rolled up alongside: "Walking anywhere in particular."

I told her where and she volunteered to take me

. I got in. Well at least I wasn't driving solo.

Inside Target I browsed the CD racks and remembered that I'd been meaning to write about how downloading music is good for the environment. I'll expand on this with a later post, suffice to say that if you're not buying your music when its wrapped in cellophane and a hard plastic case, you're doing your part for the environment, if not for your collection of music.

Anyway, since I was on lunch I had to quick step it out of there to get back to my computer and do some work.

Walking out I saw four bins beyond the check-out cashiers -- each one was marked for a different recyclable material. A few hurried minutes later I had the store manager in front of me and he told me that this particular Target had the bins in place for about three weeks now. (I didn't have the heart to tell him that I'd been to Wal-Mart twice in those three weeks).

So, all of you Loudoun County people who live near the Target off Cascades Parkway take note: you can recycle the plastic bottles

, cans and whatnot that I passed along the side of the road on my way to the store. That's right. Target will take your trash even from the outside. Read more about Target's green commitment.

A little down the road from Target is the field where my daughter practices soccer twice a week and where she occasionally has her games. Last weekend, empty coffee cup in hand I looked around for a trash can.

And looked. Nothing. Now this isn't some out of the way place; the field is part of the recreation area for a local elementary school. There's a collection of monkey bars, a small baseball field and the soccer field. But no trash can.

Every parent who has ever had a child play soccer knows that game day includes half-time snacks and then an end of game snack, not to mention water breaks during the game. But no trash cans to dispose of anything, let alone trash cans for recycling the

ubiquitous plastic water bottles.

My guess is that most of the 11 and 12 year old girls on my daughter's soccer team spent some of their time this week talking about Earth Day in school. Probably a good number of parents thought about it too, whether pro-environment or not. I wonder if this Saturday when all of us are walking back to our cars if we'll have made sure that the snack drinks, water bottles and everything else is thrown away someplace properly and not left on the grass.

Stay tuned.