Yesterday, we were driving on a country road to go visit a friend in her new home when we went by a dump site. It had high mountains of crushed metal scraps... my 2nd grader was HORRIFIED! Our exchange went something like this...
"Why do they leave that there like that Mom?" she said with passion and extreme concern for this urgent situation.
"What do you want them to do with the garbage, love?" I asked.
"Not just leave it on the Earth!!!"
So on went the discussion as we kept driving about what happens with the things we throw in the garbage. Her response:
"I'm NEVER throwing ANYTHING out again!!"
My response: "Well we better stop buying things too then because it always results in more things needing to be thrown out in the end - packaging, broken things...!"
Well, that was ridiculously over the top to her... and there lies the problem. We are so comfortable in our wasteful lifestyles that any major sacrifice to address the serious issue of waste management becomes a difficult one to tackle on a personal level! It's easy to remain ignorant (I'm not preaching but rather including myself in here) when we don't often see it like we did yesterday and we just see our garbage picked up at the curve to go to some distant land we don't think much of...
And so we continue to live our lives, my daughter with a new awareness of the problem our wastefulness causes for the environment, and perhaps we'll get better and better as a family and a society to make smarter decisions about what we buy and discard.
Side note: For one, I've become much more aware of the amount of waste packaging produces... so that influences what products I put in the shopping cart... ie. I've never liked toilet paper and paper towel that are individually wrapped within their larger package... so much plastic! Now I'm noticing other packaging too... like juice boxes and water bottles... we've been bad for that because they're so convenient and recyclable... but they're still waste that need to be processed and that could be avoided... And what a movement to see all major grocery stores in our area push reusable bags and charge for the plastic ones now! I wonder when other retail stores will follow suit?
You know, my daughter's disgust at those mountains of scrap metal and garbage was a great reminder to me about how desensitized I've become about the whole situation... I truly should feel more of the urgency she did yesterday in the face of the blatant problem of waste management.
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Great reminder
12 years ago
Indeed! As my husband's parents (and himself growing up) live in the country directly across from our county landfill site, it is a constant reminder of the detritus of our society. Even it's ubiquitous presence, however, is not as shocking as the experience of touring the actual site. I went in for the first time in my life last year, as we had moved and I needed to dump my very old and musty mattress. Surrounded by stinking heaps of waste, some probably from our own home, friends' and neighbours', I felt sick. It changed my outlook forever - I will never forget.
ReplyDeleteMusic to this auntie's ears...what a smart kid! April is thinking of recruiting her in a few more years ;)
ReplyDeleteI thought of April and of my throwing out the foil to use saran wrap instead to put food away in the fridge when you were here Jenn...!! Always room for improvements... Yes, my Julia is becoming very environmentally aware the past year... ;)
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