Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Garbage garbage everywhere...


(Nice fishing spot eh Billy?)

I think we need to learn to start picking up after ourselves. I know I've touched on this in earlier posts and it's obvious that this problem is getting to the point where we can't wrap our heads around it. Well some of us don't have heads that big anyway but it really has a simple solution. It's all a matter of perspective. You may think nothing of tossing a wrapper or plastic grocery bag out the car window or over the side on a fishing trip but multiply that by a couple hundred million. Two swirling messes the size of Texas are now in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. You may not see this legacy to consumption by sea or air but it's there non the less. And where we were told that plastic bags would last 300 years or more the truth is that the sun salt water and ocean movement are breaking this down to the size of fish food. And what do fish know? They'll eat anything that remotely looks like food.

Here's a little fact that you won't find in the headline news. Even with recycling we throw away enough material every day to support another country. Take a trip to the dump and watch as a line of cars and trucks creates a mountain of trash on a daily basis. Now multiply that by the number of cities doing the same thing. I've been to three or four transfer stations in the area and there's never been shortage of customers. One station piles the garbage up until it's twenty feet high with a front loader before it gets loaded into container trucks for its' journey to the land fill. But then there are the dumpers. The cheap skates who travel by night wanting to avoid dump fees. They'll find any out of the way place to stash their trash. What they fail to realize is that it may be out of sight and out of mind right now but it will come back at them at some point in the future.

I can only imagine with the loosening of regulations what industry is adding to the problem. I realize that so much of our mess has been dumped on China. They have entire cities that are now uninhabitable due to our electronic waste and their primitive methods of recycle, but eventually we'll have to pay the price for such folly. There is only so much earth to occupy and it's all interconnected. We're all in the same boat or in this case what's soon to become a garbage can. Gee I don't feel like Oscar the Grouch just yet. Get wise ya muppets!

100 times increase in garbage in 40 years

8 comments:

The Blog Fodder said...

I cannot comprehend the kind of people who throw trash beside the road. Same people who wave flags and carry guns to show how patriotic they are?
Ukraine is like that too. Garbage abandoned at roadside for someone else to clean up.
Singapore cleaned up but at some cost to civil freedoms.

harry said...

And to think that many of us come from folks who never threw ANYTHING away.
String, nails, buttons, name it.

"...entire cities that are now uninhabitable due to our electronic waste and their primitive methods of recycle, but eventually we'll have to pay the price for such folly."

The price = evolution.
Or de-volution if you prefer.
Just a race against time.

"Nothing to see here folks, just move along now...."

EAT MORE RICH

Randal Graves said...

Oh sure, garbage has increased, but you're forgetting all the incredibly useful and precious things longed for by the human heart for thousands of years, inexpressible because we didn't know such delicious baubles existed and now our lives are complete amen.

BBC said...

Even out in the wilderness I pick up trash the others leave behind. We're over populated and fucked, I give mankind about another 50 years.

BBC said...

Future shopping won't require plastic bags, you'll just shoot the neighbors dogs for dinner.

Or a rich fuck.

S.W. Anderson said...

That guy in the photo obviously has no navigation skills at all.

That said, you're right on about how much refuse we generate. It can't go on indefinitely. On top of domestic waste, we will soon have to deal with quantities of readioactive waste drifting in from Japan.

BBC said...

It appears that there will come a point in time when it doesn't matter if you litter being as at that time all will be failing anyway.

BBC said...

Meanwhile, the weather report is looking good, get out and about some.