The other day I woke to a news article/video on The BBC: The Dumping Ground for Unwanted Clothes that left me wondering what in God's name was the point of recycling? Don't get me wrong, I am not against recycling but I probably don't do it for the reasons you do. To save the planet? Good luck with that!
A while back someone made an offhand comment to me regarding their 'travel footprint' and having some concerns about their contribution, through air travel, towards global warming. The ever present bubble over my head which in this case trailed an ellipsis, asked: I wonder how hard it is to join the Amish... I secretly wondered how 'guilt' had become so complicated. As a Catholic I was like, really? Are people really going to confession now and confessing they went to Florida for the winter on a plane? I am saving my feelings of guilt for other stuff that seems way more important than my travel footprint or how many plastic bags I use.
I am only interested in recycling, --and cleaning thoroughly I want you to know-- items that another person wandering past my door can take, use and/or get some money for. In NYC that meant all my plastic and metal bottles and cans. Here in Merida it means certain paper, copper, and any useful item I no longer need or want. I am annoyed as heck that plastic bags have become harder and harder to come by because I need them to dispose of kitty litter.
When I saw the video I immediately thought: Wait one damned minute. This doesn't make one whit of sense. I want to know the correlation between the Trader's Joe canvas bag, (insert whatever slogan your bag declares), race, and garbage in general.
When this anti-plastic campaign took hold of the world I immediately noticed that people were toting bags from their favourite this or that or which had a picture or phrase that supported a particular belief system one might have. (Why can't we can't go about our daily lives silently? Why does everyone need to tell you what makes them so special by showing you what brands they support?) My next thought was: What is the point of eliminating plastic if you create a new nightmare in canvas tote bags? Then I came across this NY Times article that declared that for one organic-- with no printing whatsoever-- canvas tote bag one has to use it daily for 54 years in order to offset the impact of its production. If it has any sort of printing on the outside it renders that bag practically impossible to recycle because of the ink used to print the slogan. It seems a textile recycler is next to impossible to come by. Let's assume you live right next door to a textile recycling facility, then I say you are in luck. If you don't and it's on the outskirts of town then you better get on the bicycle you own and get over there to recycle your bag. If you take your car to get there...
You're just switching addictions and creating a new problem with a different name. You've created a new fad which everyone jumps on board with but which means absolutely nothing in the long run. Fads aren't thought out in the sense that they are not thought out in terms of their long term impacts. Fads are for the here and now.
Then I began to think about shit. Specifically this wonderful little book I picked up decades ago titled, History of Shit, (Histoire de la merde), by Dominique Laporte. It is a small book with pictures yet a heady read. If I have to sum it up in a few sentences I would say it is about the history of how we have devised ways to distance ourselves from shit (fecal matter or general garbage; things we no longer want, but including language -- things said we may not wish to hear). Take that concept and join it with the history of urbanization (how we set up sanitation systems), then marry those two concepts to psychology: How we as humans translate all aspects of cleanliness (potty mouth, educated tongue, outhouse, indoor toilet, potable water versus non, etc. and how we translate those ideas and concepts onto our perceptions of people. The more hidden the toilet, the garbage and the fifth the easier it is to believe ourself superior and to convince others of this notion as well. Our shit doesn't stink but yours does.
Let's link the ability to ship our shit to countries where people are brown and have to live in shit. Not their own shit but my shit. Let's talk about how I recycle my shit so my area stays clean but someone else, out of view has to live in my shit. Then let's looks at the fact that the brown places aren't as wealthy as the white places and don't have enough shit to throw away in the first place and therefore don't need to export their shit because they don't have as much shit in the first place. You begin to see just how tangled up this shit is and how unethical, unfair, and full of shit this recycling stuff is as it stands now. As it stands now it's cosmetic surgery for Dorian Gray. Under the surface stuff still stinks.
I don't have an answer for any of this but great thinkers are not sitting at the table. That I am sure of. And to be honest the only way to get everyone on the same page would require limiting and policing everyone's right to choose. And that will never happen because there is always someone screaming about their rights being taken away for simple stuff. telling people what they can or can not purchase with their own money would cause unbelievable problems.
Here's an idea:
We don't need to recycle; we need to start producing better humans beings. Human beings that aren't addicted to the next best thing. Humans that don't produce products that can't be repaired. Humans that find a level of shame associated with consumerism or influencing people to consume more crap. I'd like to see people recycled. If you don't work, (I am not referring to having a job), you cause more problems that anything else, or you raise children without a four year assessment as to your qualifications to do so, why not recycle you? Why can't we just stop the mess where it is and try again with someone else. Why can't we just place you in a leather bag and seal you shut with a monkey, a snake, a rooster and a dog and toss you out? (To the person who just said: But the animals didn't do anything why make the animals suffer too, you just got moved to the front of my imaginary line).
We've kept so much from antiquity why not make short shrift of useless people and make Monday, Wednesday and Friday's Poena Cullei inspired days and have drop off points where we can get rid of the waste. The last auto-da-fé carried out was really not that long ago and with enough interest shown, (just post the idea on Facebook and I'm sure it will go viral in no time), I'm sure we could get some order around here rather quickly.
That makes about as much sense to me as fixating on plastic while you simultaneously sell me products that I need help from either a chainsaw or a burly he-man to get open because of the plastic it is encased in. If the entire chain isn't deconstructed and fixed then we are just pissing into the wind. To then make this all the problem of the everyday schmo -- like me-- rather than the big gigantic company doing the actual damage, I personally find that insulting. When you fix the whole chain, then I'll get with the program.
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