Got your attention, didn’t I? I recently read “Garbology, Our Dirty Love Affair with Trash” by Edward Humes. It’s a morbidly fascinating story of trash in America. Did you know that as late as the mid-20th century some cities maintained pig farms to eat garbage? Or until the turn of the last century, cities were pestilential places with garbage, including dead horses, piled up in the streets? New York city pioneered regular waste collection. With the advent of land fills, our waste has become “out of sight, out of mind,” enabling us to ignore the fact that during our lifetimes, each American will throw away an average of 102 tons of trash. The most chilling part of the book tells about the “plastic chowder” in the North Pacific gyre, tiny bits of plastic not visible from the air, but the effects of which are troubling in terms of the oceanic (and ultimately human) food chain. As the author says, “Plastic is forever.” The final third of the book talks about companies and individuals that are looking at alternatives–from using recycled bottles to contain and market organic compost; using garbage to generate electricity using safer ways of burning it; and something we all can do–recognizing “the power of no,” not acquiring disposable stuff in the first place.
FUMCGreen Reads a “Dirty” Book
July 16, 2012 at 6:39 pm (Reflections)
Tags: books, environment, voluntary simplicity
