Today's encore is about trash -- or more specifically: landfill. The stuff that gets thrown away and ends up in our earth.
This week has been "Earth Week"; today is Earth "DAY". Don't get me started on this topic, the fact that we choose one week to try and fix the horrific actions done to the planet and then congratulate ourselves about it. I am not going there because it's so ridiculous that I'm not wasting words.
Yet.
I lead the Green Team at HDS which I enjoy because I get to obsess over the state of these issues with like-minded people. People who honest-to-God think about this stuff all the time. We planned events for each day of this week, designing them to keep up the educational push.
I know. I'm at Harvard. In Cambridge. Arguably one of the epicenters of progressive actions.
Yet. Yet it would surprise you how much doesn't get thought about. Partly this is undoubtedly due to the nature of our institution whose power source is prestige. Yes, there is an element of entitlement but certainly where I am-- the Divinity School-- there is real passion for social justice. Thank God. Thank Goddess. Thank Goodness. Where I am, I have institutional support for this work.
Something I resent a lot is the fact that corporations make it so hard to do the right thing... or God save us...the less-harmful thing. One tiny example of this is the amount of plastic put into our world. I loathe plastic bags. But if you go into any store to buy bags for say, lunch sandwiches, the ONLY options available are plastic bags. Polyethylene bags don't biodegrade, though they do photodegrade, which means we end up with teeny tiny plastic fragments for hundreds of years. Great. The point is that there IS another, at-least-better option for your lunch: waxed-paper bags. I buy them but there is only ONE store in my town -- our local health food store, of course -- that carries them. There is a brand called "If You Care" which I think is fabulous. Talk about calling people out.
DO YOU CARE? Of course you do, only it takes someone like me, a persistent pain in the ass, to help you think about options.
My sense is that if our consumer culture is about spending, spending, spending -- then why wouldn't corporations at least care to keep life going, so they can continue to make money? Honestly, wouldn't it make financial SENSE to keep the planet healthy? How stunningly short-sighted are you when you don't even care enough to make this kind of choice -- i.e. less plastic -- commonly available?
And yes, a lot of plastic can be recycled but ONLY if a lot of people put in a lot of energy separating it and processing it. Each community has access to various processing systems and I will tell you : YES, it is complicated. I wish I could tell you that figuring out what can be recycled, what can be composted and what can't was a simple subject. I know there are complexities to it and yet, I still hope that you will care to figure it out.
The best advice? Keep it simple. Use less. Buying less stuff means less to dispose of. I think corporations should be responsible for all the excessive packaging but that's a story for another day. For today, just focus on less to go into the waste stream.
My mantra comes from the Depression: "Use it up; wear it out. Make it do or go without."
I am no saint, friends -- but I do believe these are holy words.
So, my encore for today? Go take a walk outside. Take a walk in the woods, if you're near woods. Go find something green and below it, some dirt. THAT'S a real Earth Day, friends. Get out there and be in it. THAT will do you good.
No comments:
Post a Comment