Pollywogs!

So why the pissy face you may ask? Well I’ll tell you. This suburban family of 4 were so freaking wasteful it was unbelievable. I could barely stand to watch as the the dad proclaimed that “it is what it is” with regard to the amount of trash they produce in a 6 month time period (I believe it was 2.2 tons)…and that they once had one recycling bucket but that it blew away (no doubt it was empty) and they never bothered to retrieve it or replace it. Arrrrg. And it gets worse. This family of 4 has a total of 9 tvs in the house….NINE! Are you freakin’ kidding me? The mom does between 3 & 4 loads of laundry per day, that is 21 to 28 loads of laundry per week! What the hell, how is that even possible with a family of four? This mystifies me. And they do not use real dishes, instead the use Styrofoam cups and plates every day, every meal, every drink. They were spending $400 per year on Styrofoam! How freakin’ wasteful is that? And where does all this Styrofoam go? If is was stuffed up their butt they would know. But they admitted that they did not think about where there trash ends up, once it left there house it wasn’t their problem.  Absurd!

I must add that by the end of the show the family was convinced that they will begin to recycle, they stopped using Styrofoam and they began turning lights off in rooms that weren’t in use. The mom did cut back on her laundry, she now does only 14 loads per week…

Unfortunately this family’s habits are the norm for too many Americans. We are the most wasteful country, we use the most oil and we eat the most food. Too many people are simply lazy and not willing to change the slightest, they just don’t even think of the environment aside from what they can see right in front of them: a green suburban lawn. And the truth is…(reduce, reuse and) recycling is not hard, it does not take much effort…yet its results are very beneficial to the environment AND the future. Many communities offer curbside pickup, they will give you the buckets for free (you may have to pay a small fee for pick up, some places it may be free) and there are drop off locations all over the place. Once you get the buckets, make room for them, find out about the pick up day or locate a local drop off place…the rest is soooo easy and takes little effort on your part. So why doesn’t everyone do it?  I just don’t get it…

Recycling should be mandatory. Everywhere!  Anything that can be recycled should be recycled. And municipalities should take every possible thing that can be recycled (you may already be aware that some places do not take paperboard (such as cereal boxes) or plastic bags labeled #4 or PP which is #5 (yogurt containers, for eample)). Junk mail, aluminum, tin, glass, plasttic, cardboard, newspaper, magazines, plastic grocery bags and much more…none of these items should be put into landfills. There is no excuse.

The world has come very far over the past two decades, but we have so much farther to go.  Please do your part…recycle, future generations will thank you.