Others who showed up for the Earth Day party at the recycling center included Kim Shafer, who brought her three children and a big sack of cans they'd been saving. And Tim Graham was there, too. Graham is an ecologist with the U.S. Geological Survey at the Canyonlands Research Station in Moab.

Later he talked about life in this part of the state. When people visit, he says, "They don't realize that we are just a dinky little town." Some Moabites feel there should be something done to help the locals, he said.

What would happen if some of the transient room tax, some of the money that comes from the visitors, went to support the impact of the visitors, Graham wonders. "Instead of having all that money going back into tourism promotion." That way, he says, "the cost of the landfill, the cost of recycling are born fairly and not just by the local people."

Meanwhile, you might ask (feeling a little guilty to have come from a city where your recyclables get picked up at the curb), what can visitors do?

Graham suggested, "In terms of what they buy when they are here: less packaging." If you don't see a recycling bin, you could take your recyclables home with you, recycle them there.

Or, Sara Melnicoff added, you could ask the Moab business owner to provide a recycling bin. Or you could bag your cans and plastics and drop them off yourself at the Canyonlands Community Recycling Center, 1000 E. Sand Flats Road. (It's on your way to the Slickrock Trail, Melnicoff points out.)

Or you could get online at the Tourist Bureau's discovermoab.com site and learn about volunteering while you are here on vacation. On two days' notice, Melnicoff found a meaningful project for a group of Brigham Young University students, she says. They picked up trash and recyclables from an old orchard.

Melnicoff suggests another little project she calls the Underground Recycling Railroad. The Moab recycling center can't find a market for cereal boxes, #2 plastic, phone books or catalogues — they don't accept those items. Still, a number of Moabites don't want to throw their cereal boxes and phone books in the landfill.

So Melnicoff has been storing stacks of unacceptable materials, and when someone is going to Salt Lake City or some other big city, she'll send a package with them. If you would be willing to recycle the things the Moabites can't, just give her a call at 435-259-0910.

You can drop the Moab cast-offs at a center in a bigger city and the center will make money by selling the stuff, Melnicoff points out. She says some friends recently drove a load to Salt Lake City and deposited the catalogues and boxes in the recycling bin at a private school.