THE JOURNAL & TOPICS NEWSPAPERS | WEEK OF APRIL 20, 2008
Take A Stand: Help The Environment
By MAUREEN PEKOSH
Green has been my favorite color for a long time. Now it seems my favorite choice is becoming fashionable---and with good reason. In our haste to rush around and get everything done in a day, we have come to rely more and more on convenience. While grab and go food is good for eating on the run in terms of quickly and easily filling someone's stomach, it is not good on the environment. We continue to generate needless waste. While earth seems like a vast expanse, our resources are limited and cannot accommodate limitless garbage.
At a young age, my education as it pertained to planet earth, revolved around learning about the solar system and basic geography. I do not remember being educated about the environment or having any environmental awareness. I find myself developing more of an environmental conscience because my children are coming home asking if they can donate their old tennis shoes to help build a new playground and bring a waste free lunch to school. At least it seems that some of us past squanderers are learning the errors of our ways and trying to start the next generation down a greener path.
The United States has less than 10% of the world's population but is responsible for almost half the world's garbage---not a statistic we should be proud of. We generate roughly four pounds of garbage a day and as a nation we need to go on a garbage diet. Sadly, what few of us seem to realize is that we are not really throwing our trash away, we are just removing it from our immediate environment. It will eventually either end up in a landfill or be incinerated. Ultimately all trash must go somewhere. We must realize that our responsibility does not end with our removing it from our immediate environment. We must responsibly choose to limit the waste we generate by recycling and reusing rather than simply relocating our rejected refuse.
The packaging things come neatly wrapped in, while ideal for display to entice purchase or convenient for mobility and portion control, accounts for 38% of unnecessary waste. I buy individually wrapped bags of snacks to feed my kids all the time because it is easier. I can just grab a prepackaged bag of snacks and put it in a lunch bag or a soccer bag and check off another small item on a long mental to do list. I pack their lunches in a plastic bag because it fits easily in their lunch bag and requires no further effort on my part. I let my kids drink reasonable sized beverages in pouches or cartons because it seems to work best for everyone. But once I take a global view of the situation, my choice is not really best for everyone, just best for my immediate concerns. Long term, I am needlessly generating waste that must be stored or burned, and could better be used when reused.
I could purchase reusable containers but then my kids would have to keep track of them and we tend to lose too many things better than we keep track of them. I would have to wash reusable containers and why would I knowingly give myself more work to do? I previously dismissed the idea. I have been making excuses instead of making good choices. My kids all have reusable sports bottles for water because I did not like the statistics I read about the cost plastic bottles are exacting on our surroundings. I was feeling good about that choice and opting to not even think about doing more because I was doing some of my part. In the long run, not taking responsibility for disposal of used items will catch up with all of us. We cannot continue to generate needless garbage because it is the easiest choice. It is the costliest choice. As the amount of garbage we generate continues to spiral out of control, the costs of not doing our part place a greater burden on our valuable and limited resources. Our resources are naturally constrained. Sadly the same is not true of our garbage.
There is only so much space for landfills and there are concerns about landfills polluting surrounding water sources. Why do we continue to needlessly burden existing landfills? Some garbage can be burned but burning produces its own pollution to the atmosphere and ash, which can contain hazardous materials, still has to be put someplace responsibly. We need to realize that we are responsible for our discards even after we throw them in the trash. Perhaps then we will throw them somewhere other than the trash.
For every ton of paper and cardboard thrown away rather than recycled, 17 trees are needlessly chopped down, 25 barrels of oil are expended and cannot be used to generate other energy, and 7,000 gallons of water are wasted. Additionally, three yards of landfill has been taken up, space that could be used for a new home, park, or school.
Once you've enjoyed this week's Journal, please don't make it add to our environmental burden. Recycle it.