13 January 2003

They don’t tear things down around here

When I first moved to Senlis in February the entire country had just instituted a recycling program.  Muskingum County and probably three quarters of the US could take lessons from the French.

In Muskingum County you have to drive clear to Kentucky to find the recycling center.  Actually I think the county recycling department is on a spy mission because it’s hidden better then the CIA on a stake out. 

In Senlis the city hall gives out yellow bags for plastic, packaging and soda cans.  They also give out blue bags for newspapers, office paper and magazines.  Heavy-duty brown bags are given for grass and leaves, which are then composted and sold back to the residence for their gardens.  The glass is dropped at a convenient location down the street. 

The French recycle buildings.   In places like Pierrefonds and Moyon huge ancient buildings have been almost completely reconstructed.  Even the stonewall that surrounds the inner part of Senlis, which was built by the Romans back when the Romans had an empire is repaired regularly.  Last spring there was a huge crack in the wall near our house.  The city workers took the wall apart piece by piece, and then rebuilt it.  In the process of dismantling they found several pieces of Roman pottery.

In the US, that wall would have fallen down before anyone even took notice.  It’s difficult to understand how little emphasis the government places, money wise anyway, on preserving the buildings in cities and towns.

Every time I come back to Zanesville I am devastated to see whole blocks of historic buildings gone to the landfill and a modern drug store in their place.  One time I met Mayor Fenton at a Chamber of Commerce meeting and asked him what would be the possibility of recycling some of the millions of bricks and wood that end up mowed down.  He gave me some answer about his son working on that issue in another town and that was the end of that.  Since then we could have built a whole other city out of the materials that have been wasted by James and Sons knocking down half of the town.

Anyway.  Sigh.

The buildings in Senlis are ancient, for the most part.  Some of them have been here for more than 1,000 years, which is difficult for me to imagine.  The kings of France once lived here and signed proclamations that changed the face of Europe. 

There is respect for oldness here, including people.  Life is not constantly changing and there is importance in the stories that have been handed down from one century to the next.

While I realize that France is the butt of many a joke. It is clear to me that we could take a few lessons from how they are doing things in their towns and villages.  My grandma used to say you can’t fight city hall, but I think what she meant to say is that if city hall would listen to people there wouldn’t be a fight.