Confessions of an old guy: Recycling drives me nuts, bonkers, round the bend.
I have, in my hand, what I have always known as garbage -- stuff you throw out. I used to head for the nearest wastebasket, the nearest receptacle for the stuff I just wanted to get rid of, and throw it in there.
But no, that’s not good enough any more. I stand there, stuff to throw out in my hand, paralyzed. Is this paper? Is this recyclable plastic? Is this…? I am not two feet away from a wastebasket. Wastebaskets are all over my house. When I want to throw something away, I want to throw it away now.
But no, I’m paralyzed. I can’t make up my mind, which container should I….
I know. This is an old guy talking. The younger generation has had it imprinted on them since birth -- this goes into that container, whereas this goes into… On the other hand, this, which is….should only….
I go nuts, they know what to do.
But I feel a deeper, much deeper anger. My little nuts-making activity is just a drop in the bucket. In fact, all us individuals should turn all our massive energy into stopping them, curbing their behavior.
Countless studies prove that the effort of all well meaning individuals counts for almost nothing. It is companies, corporations that are polluting on a massive, earth-destroying scale. If we just worked on them…
At times, I am beyond belief angry. I am an activist. I have marched, written, protested -- and so many of those who put massive time into recycling do so little protesting -- so little active duty against the really bad people, the true villains of this piece.
I hate the effort I expend figuring out what to do with the junk in my hand. It is junk. Throw it away. Get companies to stop using plastic, to stop triple wrapping for quadruple freshness. I hate their behavior, their pollution which goes almost uncontrolled, and I hate what I have turned into -- a man paralyzed when he has something in his hand he wants to throw out, discard, get the heck out of his hand into the nearest receptacle.
They’ve brainwashed us, turned us into paralyzed, nit picking nut cases, while they do what they want to do.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
It's the age old problem. People are far more concerned with their own lives/problems to spare energy for change. Most don't even realise that there's anything wrong with the whole retail industry.
So things have to get unbelievably bad before people will consider taking action. We may be on the way with all this austerity. Greece is almost there and Spain isn't far behind.
Once it starts, it'll be up to us to steer the discontent to include EVERYTHING that's wrong. Actually, this can be summed up with get rid of the all powerful corporations and go back to small business.
Forget the "absolute power brings absolute corruption", it's more a case of absolute power brings an almost total shut down of all reasoning ability and empathy.
Post a Comment