I don’t know if you know this, but I love lists. I’m a freak
about making them, and not at all swell at following them. I’m that girl who
writes, “Make list” at the top of the page just so I’ll have something to check
off later and thus feel accomplished. This is only relevant because that’s the
format of today’s post.
Today’s topic is waste! It’s a mostly unnecessary rant about a few of the things I find most wasteful in today’s world.
(I apologize in advance to Scott who has suffered through most
of these before.)
1) Leaf blowers – The leaf blower was possibly
invented in the 1950’s (no one seems to know for sure) and it was not, in fact, made for blowing leaves. It was originally intended to spray chemicals (right
off the bat it was not environmentally friendly).
My problem with the leaf blower is obvious – they pollute
the environment and they’re obnoxious. Let’s also take into consideration what
they do. They blow shit from one area to another. You’re not removing the problem;
you’re just pushing it aside. It’s like when you used to clean your room by
shoving everything under your bed. That’s not making things any better; you
still have to sort through that junk eventually.
2) Plastic:
a.
Sandwich bags – it is absolutely outrageous that
we even use these. Imagine that you have one child who you send to school daily
with a sandwich. That’s about 180 school days of plastic baggies that then get
thrown away to sit in a landfill for hundreds of years. Now multiply that by
every child in every school across the world.
b.
Straws – Yes, I complain about this on a weekly
basis, but I’m dead serious about it. The other day a barista gave me double
straws in my coffee and I was irritated for about an hour. Maybe I was
overreacting, but really? Coffee lids (bad enough that they’re plastic too)
have holes in them for drinking out of. It’s not rocket science. According to
simplystraws.com, “More than 500 million disposable plastic straws are used in
the United States every day and would fill more than 127 school buses daily, or
more than 46,400 school bus loads per year”. I don’t know about you, but this
literally gives me anxiety. 500 million per day, and that’s just the United States!
c. INDIVIDUALLY WRAPPED PRUNES This is another thing that I become positively
livid over whenever I see them. I shit you not,
these exist. I’m not sure why anyone needs to preserve prunes when they’re
already a dried fruit. I’m also not sure who decides it’s ever necessary to
eat only one prune.
d.
CD wrappers – we all hate these, mostly because
they’re annoying as hell to open. What
you probably never even consider is that it’s just wasteful.
e. Bottled water - Water is free, people. It's free! Approximately only 13% of water bottles actually end up getting recycled. That leaves the rest to sit around in landfills, leaching toxins into the air for hundreds of years. Stop it.
I
think you can see by now that single use plastic is of the devil, so I’ll end
that sub list here.
3 3)
Graveyards - I’m aware that death is something
that we still don’t fully comprehend and are a little scared of. I think that
most cultures agree by now, however, that if there is a soul it doesn't stay in
the body once life has ended. As such, I believe cemeteries are taking up way
too much space on our earth – millions of acres and counting. It would be one
thing if we buried our dead without a coffin. In that way, they could decompose
and give back to the earth like many of our ancestors did. This coffin business
is out of hand, though. Caskets are hundreds, even thousands, of dollars. They
have pillows and blankets and all sorts of fancy accouterments to keep the dead
comfortable. Last I checked, though, the dead don’t really require a lot of
comfort. I understand the desire to pay tribute to a loved one, and I
understand that it’s hard to let someone go. Cemeteries offer a place for
people to visit when they’re missing someone, but keep in mind that our
population is up to over 7 billion. That’s a lot of lives and it’s going to be
a lot of deaths. We’re already destroying enough of the planet while we’re alive;
maybe once we die we could agree to cut it some slack.
(Check out this article on some of
the ways other cultures used to dispose of their dead: http://matadornetwork.com/bnt/10-extraordinary-burial-ceremonies-from-around-the-world/
I’m not advocating for all of them, but I definitely enjoy the ones where they
leave the bodies outside to be eaten by wild animals)
4) Cat toys - You know what cats play with? Anything they want. String, grass, your toes, your hair, your nose, small woodland creatures. They don't need man made toys (...especially ones made out of plastic)
5) Baby toys - In that same vein, babies also don't need a lot of toys. They're babies. They play with basically anything cats do. As long as you're not letting them chew on electric chords, they should be fine. What babies really need for the first year of their life is lots of face time with humans and pets who love them. They need nurturing and someone to keep them safe. Interpersonal development starts young!
6) Any happy meal or vending machine toy - Again, these are just pieces of plastic that people end up throwing away because their kids already have too many toys. They don't promote creative development. They're a waste of the manufacturers' money and time, and they hurt when you step on them.
7) Water - This one is pretty obvious, and one I'm pretty guilty of. I love long, hot showers. Think about all the times we let the water run just waiting for it to get hot. That shit is bananas. Just flushing the toilet uses anywhere from 1-5 gallons of water depending on the kind you have. That doesn't sound like a large amount until you consider how many toilets there are in the world. According to WWF, it takes 50 gallons just to make one latte. (http://worldwildlife.org/videos/change-the-way-you-think-about-your-morning-latte) I drink at least one latte a week, and I'm only one person.
8) Time - I don't think I even need to bother explaining this one.
For those of you interested in minimizing your carbon footprint, here are three (plus one for the pet owners) handy sites. I don't want you to think I'm just complaining without offering solutions.
http://www.westpawdesign.com/catalog/cats/best-cat-toys/eco-friendly-cat-toys (In case you really, really have to get your cat some toys)
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