For several years now Catholic Charities on Columbia Road in Dorchester seeks volunteers on Saturday mornings to help stuff several thousand bags or so with food for distribution to needy families during the coming weeks. It’s there that Beth Chambers, Mike Kilgannon, Ellen Modica, Pat, Beatrix, and so many others have kept this finely tuned machine running over the years, not without the help of ubiquitous Boston Police Officer Manny who brings in more than almost two dozen teenagers weekly.

For years all the cardboard generated from the truckloads has been recycled by placing it into one of the two large dumpsters – the one for recycling. It was first thought that only nearby residents were occasionally contaminating the recycle dumpster by putting in their trash or landscapers putting in their cuttings. But, more recently, the dumpster for to-be-recycled cardboard, has been contaminated regularly, so much so that the trash hauler has discontinued its recycling efforts. It seems that only recently, after expensive fencing has been erected to thwart nearby residents and passersby from depositing their non-recyclable trash in the recyclable-cardboard only bin, has the system irrevocably and ironically broken down. When non-recyclables are mixed in with the cardboard, the load becomes contaminated and is of no use: it must be discarded as if the contents were all garbage, trash, etc.

It seems that the Catholic Charities regular staff are responsible for contaminating the recycle dumpster: who else would be heaving wooden pallets, plastic milk crates, and cartons of rotten fruit into it? This continues week after week as hundreds of pounds of cardboard are prevented from being recycled, as the “recycle” dumpster becomes merely another trash dumpster.

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The shrink wrap and other such plastic are taken by a volunteer to Roche Brothers, Lowes, or Wegman’s, all three of whom recycle plastic bags.

It’s seems questionable to mislead teenagers, as well as adult volunteers, that their efforts to recycle are for naught, especially in light of a papal announcement by Pope Francis in 2018 called Laudato Si that encourages, nay mandates, all of us to recycle and treat Mother Earth better.