FLORENCE, SC -- I have been recycling ever since I was knee-high to a grasshopper. OK, that might be a slight exaggeration but I know we recycled, at least to some extent, before a law was enacted in 1992 that made it mandatory to recycle certain items where I grew up (Washington County, N.Y.). Plastic bottles and aluminum cans containing carbonated beverages had a 5-cent deposit, which was an incentive to return them, especially for a college student. My family would save the containers and I would take them back when I made the nearly 1,000-mile trip home. It was a messy job, but I was happy to do it. To tell you the truth, I think I would have done it without the monetary reward.