I dropped the empty peanut butter jar into the trash can, and covered it carefully with banana peels and used paper towels.  I had decided the natural resources required to clean the plastic jar sufficiently to be recyclable (e.g., a gallon of hot, soapy water) were worth much more than the plastic’s value.  Besides, I didn’t want to wipe the peanut butter remnants from the jar.  But for my hiding the jar, she would have pulled it from the garbage and cleaned it for recycling.  After I tossed in the trash a sandwich baggie containing bits of salmon, mostly scaly skin, I found the bag wet and smelly drying next to the clean dishes.  “Mom,” I called across the room, “nobody wants to recycle this fishy sandwich bag.  They don’t want it.”  She huffed as I tossed the bag again into the garbage can.  One evening we returned from a church chili social.  My son, Brian, pushed her wheelchair from the church building next door.  Back at home, I found on her desk her plastic chili dish, her plastic cider cup, and her plastic fork and spoon.  “Mom, why are your dirty chili dishes here at home,” I called across the room.  She huffed and told me she wanted to recycle them.  I knew none of the items were acceptable for recycling, and used her trick in reverse by later pulling the items from the recycling bag and hiding them amongst the trash.