One Man's Trash...

By The U.S. National Archives

During the Great Depression and the war that followed, people learned to save and re-use everything.   By today's standards they might have been considered hoarders or pack rats.  But back then, it was necessary for survival, and rationing was encouraged by the government.

I think, and I could be wrong, that today's society sees rationing as a sign of poverty or weakness--a holdout of that dark time in America.  Counter to reason, when today's unemployment rates are so high and prices are soaring, all the new stuff is disposable, and it gets disposed of, or thrown on the ground.  Even the earth's good, fresh water gets a disposable feeling to it once we put it in a plastic bottle. This is taken as sign of affluence and success.

But true success doesn't come from making sure you clean up your extravagant messes.  It comes from not making the mess in the first place.  Many Americans take great, albeit strange, pride in their trash, and feel they are entitled to do with it as they please.  If anyone tells them otherwise, they become defensive, just like the possessive toddler who refuses to flush her bowel movement down the toilet. So, out the window the plastic bottle of fresh water goes, to flow into the storm sewer, to the river, to the sea, joining the flotilla of plastic bottles, because that's the owner's self-given right.

I am not implicating you, the reader, in actual littering.  But, how much of what we buy and therefore promote is made to be thrown away and encourages littering in others?  Do we take so much pride in the disposability of everything that we have lost touch with the reality that it's dangerous to the planet? By buying disposables, are we supporting a garbage-based society? It sure looks like it when I walk my dog and come home with hands full of litter.

By The U.S. National Archives

My grandparents had a giant pile of tin and aluminum cans in their back yard.  It was amazing how much metal trash two people (and their guests) could produce. I think it was embarrassing for my parents, especially my mom, to see that kind of clutter and obsessive collection.   Nobody "in their right mind" wants their yard to look like a junk yard.  Today, the goal in society is that our waste must not be seen or smelled, and recycling must be nearly effortless.  I wonder, is that a reasonable goal?  Should we be so unaware of what our garbage is doing after it leaves our hands?  If garbage was collected once a month rather than once a week, would we buy so much stuff?  Would we make phone calls to the companies who sell that stuff, and tell them they're cramping our style when we can't buy bulk re-fills?  Or would we just complain about the smell and demand weekly pickup?

Isn't one man's trash actually everyone's treasure?  The wealth of our nation, I daresay "world," is going in the dump, on the ground, or worse.  According to Anu Agarwal, CEO of TheGreenEcostore.com,

"A common estimate is that the global consumption of plastic bags is more than 500 billion annually — that's almost a million plastic bags used per minute. But only 1 per cent is recycled. Plastic can take up to 1,000 years to break down, so even when an animal dies and decays after ingesting some, the plastic re-enters the environment, posing a continuing threat to wildlife,"

By San Diego Air & Space Museum Archives

 Why are people afraid to tell companies that we don't want everything to be over-packaged and plasticized?  I called Gatorade a month or two ago to tell them the reason I bought the powdered drink mix was to avoid buying plastic bottles, but now they sell the drink mix in weird plastic cylinders.  I told the woman on the phone I thought it was a mistake to change from cardboard to plastic, and I wanted them to change it back.  Years ago, when Oil of Olay stopped making glass bottles for their lotions, I called them to complain.  I don't get anything out of the complaints.  I'm probably in the minority and really can't make a difference, but I still let people know how I feel. I believe that taking care of my home means taking into consideration what I bring into it and how it impacts the entire world.  Unfortunately there are so many hidden costs to everything these days.  Does that bother you?  It bothers me.