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September 17, 2009 - By Wilder Bunke
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environmentalist. Everyone is trying to make the world a ‘greener’
place, but not very hard. Everyone is into recycling, but not really.
Everyone is picking up every piece of trash but their own. We just
don’t care that much. No one is trying very hard to save the planet,
we’re just pretending. There, I’ve said it. I’ve been as blunt as
possible. No one really cares. If we did, phenomenon like the Great
Pacific garbage patch would not exist.
The Great Pacific garbage patch is a collection of all sorts of junk
we have dumped into the ocean that has become trapped by opposing
currents. It is mostly mode up of tiny bits from slowly breaking down
plastic objects. Oh, did I mention that it is twice the size of Texas?
It’s a wonderful monument to our apathy as a species to the plight of
our planet. In America, we seem to have a “We’re not perfect, but
you’re worse” mentality. When we talk of pollution, and how to solve
it, we quickly jump on places like China, and overlook the things we
could actually have an effect on. We’re not perfect, but you’re worse.
We complain about other countries, then go out and buy stuff layered
in non-recyclable plastic, puny electronics sandwiched in between that
hard plastic packaging that impossible to open, and that is just
thrown away. It’s not uncommon to see a thumbnail size memory card in
a package 10 times its size. No one thinks of these things, we’re too
busy finding another scapegoat. If we cared at all, companies could
easily package such items in smaller or recyclable boxes, but we
don’t. We’re content where we are, and we won’t do anything until it
threatens our comfort.
Who opens windows instead of air conditioning? Who keeps their bottles and cans
until they find a recycle can? Who has planted a tree? Who takes short
showers and waters their lawn at night? Who carpools? Who cringes at
individually plastic wrapped single serving everything? Next to none
of us. Why? Because doing so would require effort, or force us to
change something. But we try, right? Take a quick look at these
wonderfully demoralizing garbage facts about North High School. Every
week, students throw away 5,750 cardboard cafeteria trays, and 11,500
milk and juice cartons. This comes to about 725 pounds of trash per
week, or 12 tons of trash per year. The bags from all the chips
consumed all year would cover almost 87,000 square feet. Without
taking into account the large number of soda and Gatorade bottles,
styrofoam containers, sporks, straws, ketchup packets, napkins, etc,
this is still a large amount of trash.
We are a ‘throw away’ society that recycles minimally and carries
around ‘go green’ tote bags to ease our consciences. We are a
polluting society that points fingers at other to avoid
responsibility. We just don’t care enough. We were once inspired to
help the earth, but quickly lost interest. Or am I wrong? Go ahead and
recycle something just to spite me. Pick up some trash just to prove
me wrong. Don’t waste water and discredit this article. Stop spewing
carbon dioxide into the air so at the end of the day you can say, I’m
not perfect, but you’re worse.
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