"Mom!" my adolescent daughter whispered between clenched teeth. "Why couldn't you just take the bag?"

I looked at her with surprise. My intent had been to do a little Earth-friendly deed by refusing a plastic bag for purchases at a department store. But kids of a certain age just want to fit in, and all the other customers were accepting the plastic. This was before we could recycle plastic bags at most grocery stores. The bags taken home that day are probably still in garbage dumps and landfills.

"Reduce, reuse, recycle" was the mantra I taught my sixth-graders on Earth Day 1970, my first year of teaching. My daughter wasn't even born at that time, and during the 1980s and '90s lots of people forgot that lesson.

My daughter wasn't the only one I managed to embarrass by my passion for recycling. One day I was chauffeuring my son and his best friend, who were snacking in the back seat. The normally polite and charming young friend finished his drink, opened the car window, and threw his plastic pop bottle out. Seeing it in the rearview mirror, I was horrified. I slammed on the brakes and told the boys to retrieve the bottle. Maybe, possibly, unintentionally, I spoke a little stridently. My son and his friend didn't talk to me much more that day.

In the 1970s and '80s, various places for recycling plastic, glass, paper, and sometimes metal containers were available, usually not located conveniently near one's residence. I collected whatever product was being recycled in the area at the time and made the trip every so often.

A few years ago, when our recycling service tried picking up glass bottles in its bins, the glass tended to break and cut the workers. Once my husband cut his hand while sifting broken glass out of a bin I had filled. He didn't hiss at me with clenched teeth or give me the silent treatment, but his look was accusing.

Now it is so much easier. Deffenbaugh and Olathe Trash and Recycling pick up almost all paper products (excluding shredded paper,) plastics #1-7 (excluding Styrofoam,) and metal containers. Magazine and newspaper bins are scattered at schools, churches, and some businesses, and Ripple Glass receptacles can be found all over the metropolitan area. I even found a couple of Bridging the Gap recycle centers that will take scrap metal, toner cartridges, and blocks of Styrofoam.

Many other cities are far ahead of the recycling curve. In Green Bay, Wis., residents rake their leaves to the curb to be vacuumed up by city vehicles and dumped at the city compost site. Residents of Renton, Wash., enjoy curbside service that hauls away all compostable materials, even greasy napkins.

It requires a little more effort here to bag or bundle yard waste or to maintain a compost heap at home, but our suburbs are green-conscious, too. Olathe's community composting site is free to city residents and accepts drop-offs from nonresidents for a fee. A large recycling center in Overland Park and three centers in Olathe take nearly all other recyclables. Johnson County Hazardous Waste and Olathe Household Hazardous Waste accept electronics on certain days by appointment.

New services and opportunities keep popping up. Finding out about special recycling events or ongoing services such as where to take Styrofoam, scrap metal, and hazardous waste takes very little investigation, and it's so worthwhile. Your city's Web site or http://jced.jocogov.org can provide information about locations, hours, telephone numbers, and accepted materials.

I'm happy to report that these days my adult daughter and son are dedicated recyclers at their own homes and my husband is more passionate about reducing, reusing, and recycling than I am. He even maintains a big compost pile in our back yard and is building a rain barrel to help water the gardens.

Green is in! It will be hard to embarrass my grandchildren with my passion for recycling. And I'm thinking they'll be grossed out by the earthworms in the compost pile and eventually become consummate composters.