There is a bit of a strange phenomenon that has been going on since the early 1900s, where we humans believe that we can dispose of our rubbish, to throw it away and that’s it it’s all sorted it’s no longer our problem it’s gone.
I guess from our point of view, with our internal thinking if the rubbish is no longer in our front garden or back garden or filling up our waste bins then it must have been dealt with. In effect a simple mind trick. If you can’t see it smell it then it can’t be a problem right.
And that has how it’s gone on, if you can’t see the piles of rubbish that we create, if we can’t see the damage to the environment this rubbish is causing, then, of course we’re not really going to be concerned about it. Kinda out of sight – out of mind.
Problem is, this thinking, this approach isn’t really working that well.
I don’t see the BBC News showing us images from rubbish tips or polluted rivers because of our rubbish. Oh no, that would be far too shocking that would kind of remind us that what we throw away ends up filling up holes in the ground and polluting our future.
Just because it’s out of mind doesn’t mean it’s not there nor that it’s causing a problemm indeed we won’t notice it’s a problem until the landfill sites are completely full and rivers are completely full and our environment is so badly polluted that it’s not possible to drink water or for animal and insect life to live within or around it.
I don’t think we are that far away from this kind of disaster. Well, certain parts of the country where all of this s*** has been stored is no longer viable for use as land nor is it fit for human habitation or animals.
Just think about these items for a moment, disposable nappies last for around 350 years before they are completely degraded. Cigarette ends 5 to 30 years, glass bottles said to last an infinite amount of time, that means the holder in which you last received 6 small glasses of Prosecco will be around forever.
There are tons of this stuff that is dumped into bins every day and taken away to fill up holes in the ground.
In the UK we now have a ban on plastic bags, sure that’s solved some of the problems the reality is we needed to have stopped using plastic bags 10 or 15 or even 20 years ago and now we have problems with plastic bottles.
Interestingly enough it’s said that the reusable plastic bags sold as a possible solution – end up using the same amount of plastic as 150 or so conventional plastic bags – not really a solution. But it makes us feel better.
We have problems with sewage and effluent appearing in our rivers. this is all done in the name of economic growth all done in the name of maintaining the economy, all making sure the capitalist system survives.
Making sure that we all have jobs. My concern is that even the jobs are not working quite as well as they once did with many people living on minimum wage yet the damage to the environment continues, the amount of rubbish dumped continues to grow as the population grows yet we know this is a solvable problem.
We fully understand that there are alternatives, we know that the rubbish we put in our bins today ends up in landfill, what doesn’t end up in landfill ends up burnt the effects of which end up just simply polluting the atmosphere. What is going on here? Are we really that stupid as a species?
Do we really not understand that we can’t continue to do this, do we really not understand but we can’t continue to abuse the only space we have in which to live.
It doesn’t take much to start to solve some of these problems, provided we shop mindfully, provided we manage our waste on an individual basis, provided we just actually stop and think about that thing we are about to drop in the bin is there a better way is there another way of dealing with it?
Sure, there is a lot of piecemeal work going on, we now have recycling bins outside nearly all of our houses we understand that green waste can be recycled locally. But we still have the large organisations, the large manufacturing business really taking the piss out of the planet and it has to end.
And we have to do more in order to take a personal responsibility for the rubbish we create and how that is disposed of, managed and stopped.
There is only one planet, once it’s fucked it’s fucked. Let me ask you, is this want you want?