Each year residents of Santa Clara can dump their unwanted items on their curb and let the city take care of it. How convenient! Yet there is a very serious downside. I discovered simply by talking to the staff at the city Public Works Department that only 10 to 15% of the material that residents put out is actually recycled. The rest goes to a landfill. This is terribly wasteful and should be unacceptable for everyone. In this day and age allowing unwanted possessions to go to a landfill should not and cannot be an option. Rather than thoughtlessly allowing things we no longer want to go to a landfill, we must all be more proactive and mindful to find other options: offer what we no longer need or want to those in need; reduce what we buy; reduce what we possess; and reduce what we “throw away.”