I'm coming clean, after a life filled with trash. I don't recycle. Never have. Until now. The city's pay-as-you-throw program begins Monday. It's the perfect time, really, to start something like this, if you're going to start it at all. It follows a long holiday weekend of beer cans and water bottles.

That's the recyclable stuff, good, theoretically, for eternity. Meanwhile, our garbage will be removed only in special purple bags, available since last Friday. The small bags, which cost a buck each, are 15 gallons and hold 10 pounds of trash. The large ones, at $2 per bag, are 30 gallons and hold 20 pounds.

They're available at a local grocery store near you. Except Market Basket.

But I'm here merely to confess. And learn. And buy as few of those purple bags as possible. Too late to start griping. Time to start separating.

My strategy on garbage will change. In fact, I never had a strategy on garbage. Never wanted one. Never thought I needed one.

For me, it was throw-as-you-go. Every time. Milk and juice containers, soda bottles, Sports Illustrateds, you name it.

All were disposed of in an irresponsible and selfish manner. My neighbors, seeing nothing but plastic trash bags by the curb on Thursday mornings, must hate me by now.

"Can you believe that guy?

What a wasteful person. Never, ever invite him over for another barbecue.

I don't deserve an invitation, and apparently I'm not alone. Many others take our resources for granted.

Concord Mayor Jim Bouley says Concord's recycling rate is terrible, maybe 10 percent. He says the residents of Dover, one of the early pioneers of pay-as-you-throw, quickly changed their mind-set.

"We do very poorly," Bouley said. "If you look at what we should be doing and other communities like us who have pay-as-you-throw, they recycle considerably more than we do."

Bouley added that the system takes government out of our lives. "If you don't want to recycle, you don't have to," he said. "But you've got to pay for it if you don't."

You know who you are. Look in the mirror. Join me. Repent. We live in a forgiving society, a second-chance culture. That's what makes America great. That's what Mark Sanford, the naughty governor of South Carolina, is hoping for.

Plus, you'll see a reduction in cost if you join the club.

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