When we moved to Mount Airy seven years ago, my family and I had to make several adjustments. We had moved here from southern California and many of the things we took for granted were no longer available or at least not conveniently available. Of course, in some situations, we quickly realized that some things were not nearly as important as we thought – perhaps allowing us to enjoy them more when we could eventually partake in them again (e.g. Starbucks, sushi, the beach, Trader Joes, etc). One thing, however, that was a huge shock to us was the lack of curbside recycling. We were not aware that it didn’t exist when we considered moving here. We assumed that in the 21st century, a city – even one as small as Mount Airy – would surely have this service available. We were wrong.