Whether or not a person believes in climate change, it seems that we should all be able to agree on one thing, humans are polluting the planet at an increasing rate. We are throwing more stuff “away” than ever before, with everything becoming more and more “disposable”. But here’s the problem, there is no “away”.
I have moved quite a bit in the last 15 years and one thing is common among all those places, there is usually a man-made hill that grows bigger every day with piles of trash. I’ve lived mostly in land-locked states so I can’t speak to any personal experience with oceans or lakes when it comes to the pollution in those areas, but there are plenty of photos, news articles, tv shows and marketing all showing the world what we’re doing to the planet when it comes to our trash.
For a long time we’ve all been looking at recycling as a way to help reduce the trash issue and I think that’s a noble pursuit, but it doesn’t seem to be working. Recently news articles are coming out that show most of the plastic recycling in the United States is shipped to other countries where labor is less expensive. But it’s not getting recycled there either, it’s just sitting in ports waiting to pollute those areas as well. I don’t understand why it’s being shipped out of the country at all. People in the United States are always complaining about the need for jobs, so why aren’t we opening recycling plants across the country in those areas where jobs are needed?
I’m sure someone reading this will say it’s because of our environmental regulations and labor costs and that it’s a money losing proposition. Well then we need to find another way to stop throwing out trash.
The easiest and most simple answer is to stop buying stuff that will become trash in the first place.
WHAT?! How dare I suggest that our consumerist society change its ways!
Every time a suggestion like that comes up in our society its usually seen as a hippie, leftist, tree-hugger suggestion, so let me set the record straight. I live in a very typical, boring suburb (not really by choice at the moment though). I have a professional job, I own three cars (yes three). I grew up in about as normal of a rural community as you might be able to imagine. I eat meat. I don’t think GMOs are the problem and while I like locally grown, I realize that we cannot feed a planet of people with the yields created from organic farming. I am not a tree-hugging hippie.
I am a realist with eyes who can see the mountains of trash everywhere. I see the plastic bags blowing across the road and stuck in trees. I don’t want our water contaminated beyond the ability to actually drink it. I don’t want to see wildlife with plastic trash stuck around their necks.
That’s what the One-More or Less thought is all about. There are billions of people on the planet. If every single person just reduced their consumption of materials by a tiny amount, that would add up to a hell of a lot of progress. The only way we can solve this issue is to make it an issue carried by every single person. This isn’t a rich person, poor person issue, it’s not a country vs. country issue, it’s not a rural vs. urban issue. This is a human being issue.
