Has anyone ever been struck by this phrase? Like, "Oh, it's empty; throw it away!" The problem is, there IS NO "AWAY." It's all still here, all the crap we've made and sold to each other, and used and consumed and "thrown away." It might not be recognizable to us, or even visible to the naked eye...but it's still here with us. Perhaps this term is a bit dated, and needs to be retired from our lexicon? I, personally, am making an effort to no longer use this term, and I am also encouraging my friends to at least consider the same. *If it's garbage, I'll say, "put it in the trash" or (if I'm feeling sarcastic) "send it to the landfill." *If it's recyclable, I'll say, "I'll recycle this." *If it's toxic, I'll say "take it to the toxic waste drop off center." And so on. We, I think, need to be specific about WHERE we're throwing our stuff AWAY to. "Throw Away" comes across to me as perhaps even a bit arrogant. Like, "I'm done with this...it has served me and now it's exhausted...and I don't want to be bothered by its presence any longer." I'm not sure I'm comfortable with that.
Away is neither here nor there. I tend to wonder where things go like trash, before landfills. Or, on a morbid side, where are all the millions of dead bodies that had to have been buried in this land (America), not to mention the rest of the world? Where do we get rid of anything, now that I think about it...I guess when I do think about it, all the trash that ever was, is still here on this planet somewhere, right? Hmm. Thanks for making me ponder something new today.
Correct, there is no "away" to "throw it to." I prefer "recycle" (use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without). Even when put in the refuse, there is no "away," and we will eventually have to deal with whatever is discarded today. We need to completely get away from single-use items. Some in the medical profession, in light of MRSA (drug-resistant bacteria) will strongly argue for single-use items to minimize contamination and further transmission.
That reminds me of an old MTV commercial showing someone throwing something in a garbage can if I remember right. The tagline was something about "Where is away?" The specifics of the commercial have escaped me but the idea behind it hasn't. Living in Chicago is horrible from a recycling/reuse standpoint. I grew up in Iowa where we've always recycled bottles and cans. Even after living here for three years I still cringe when people throw away beer bottles or cans or whatever. Daley's supposedly this 'green' mayor but his pet blue bag recycling project is a joke. We buy blue bags from the grocery store to put our recycling in and then put it out with the trash. When it gets to the dump they sort the blue bags from the trash and send it on for recycling. Yeah, right. There are a few neighborhoods on the South Side that have recycling bins but Daley is stalling a wider rollout of those by saying they aren't as effective as his beloved blue bags. I'd love to follow the money on that one and see who's getting rich from them.
I have started using "landfilling" as a verb. Not sarcastic or mean, just as a replacement for "throw it away." Just today I was asking some of the warehouse guys what they did with some pieces they removed from some equipment: "did you keep it or did you landfill it?" They landfilled it.
Being environmentally aware, I'm not really quite sure why it's taken me so long to become aware of exactly what you're saying. I never was really a person who consumed much, so maybe it's from that perspective that I never much worried where that stuff does go. For the past year, this concept has finally arrived at the forefront of my consciousness and I'm now doing everything I can to further lighten my load on our waste stream. So far as recycling goes, I think it was on Living w/ Ed where an energy auditor was performing an audit and this person actually said that if you leave the cap on your plastic bottle when placing it in the recycling bin, it gets thrown out - not recycled. Maybe this is a good place to begin the education process since these folks are half the equation of the waste actually getting through the proper waste stream.
I think the idea is to get it out of sight long enough that it becomes the next generation's problem. This becomes an issue if you care about the next generation.
Kinda like the hole story. If anyone can identify the original, I'd be most grateful. It's not "the hole truth", it's not "he-ey, come on o-out", it's another one. . _H*
Yay, Natalie! No such thing as garbage. Stuff we're done with, yeah, and crap we didn't need in the first place...
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(hobbit @ Nov 5 2007, 09:43 PM) [snapback]535289[/snapback]</div> I don't know where your story originated, but I do love that one. It's one of those lovely stories that tells the truth.
