I think we need more litter. Rubbish should fill the streets. Putting our garbage in street corner bins and having them collected and hauled away is just an example of "out of sight, out of mind." The real problem is our level of consumption and extraneous packaging. Maybe if we could all see the amount of unnecessary garbage we produce it would inescapably obvious that we have a problem and need to cut down on producing all this garbage in the first place.
Again, another topic on this thread I have never thought about. It would be interesting to see how garbage up to our knees would affect our consumer "needs." I only shop at thrift stores, and those are always full of plenty of perfectly good items just tossed away. I've also recently started dumpster diving in order to rescue goods deemed "not worthy." Starbucks throws away a lot of bread...
Speaking of that, there are also businesses that will purposefully destroy merchandise that is being thrown out just to keep dumpster divers from getting a useful or quality score. Wastefulness, at least in this country, is out of control.
That pisses me off so much. What's the point!? Just because they can't benefit from it, that doesn't mean anyone else shouldn't either.
I'm reading a book for one of my classes, and it speaks of Native Americans and how they went about gathering food. I believe that Natives had it right. By keeping a harmonious balance with nature, waste was nonexistent. Sure, you would have those who would probably perish from lack of food, but that kept populations at levels Mother Earth could maintain.
Call me a hippy if you'd like, but I'm firm in this belief of being a 'Leaver,' not a 'Taker,' as Daniel Quinn put it in his book Ishmael.Native Americans exploited the landscape in a way that maintained species population and diversity. In California, for instance, Indians pruned shrubs for the purpose of basket making, but took care to do so during the dormant fall and winter period when the plant's future health would not be jeopardized. Similarly, shirting agriculture tended to minim nature patterns in a way that modern agriculture, with its emphasis on single-crop production, does not. Second, dietary security, not the maximization of crop yields, was the most important element of Native American subsistence. AT times, this decision not to stockpile food could hurt them, even if it contributed to the long-term ecological balance.
I was thinking about this some more today, and I got to thinking. If we just threw our trash into the street, then we'd be more aware of how much garbage we produce. So then people would make more of an effort to create less waste. But is this really plausible in today's society? I think not. There'd have to be a huge societal and industrial overhaul. I went the store the other and bought bread. The bread itself won't go to waste, but what about the plastic wrapping? Sure there are ways I could reuse it, but I can't reuse every single container my food comes in. For this to become reality, packaging would have to be either biodegradable or useful for a wide array of purposes.
Yeah it's not exactly realistic but the pursuit of ideals are never totally realistic. I remember there was a biodegradable plastic-like material that was being used as packaging. I recently bought some spinach that came in a bag made of this stuff but it didn't really take off because people hated how crinkly it was. It was quite loud but it seems that the priorities of the general public do not jive with environment responsibility.
True. But pursing ideals is a very nice way to live. WHY THE HELL IS MY SPINACH SO LOUD???!!?!?!
That's what I image the general response was like.