Over the past couple of days, I have twice visited a tip which shall remain nameless (which I've also been to on several previous occasions), dropping off "mixed rubbish" from the family home: all kinds of junk, including old toys, old clothes, old boardgames, old plastic cutlery, IKEA furniture no longer in use, other old furniture no longer in use,and so on and so on. This section of the tip - a long, narrow dumping area at the end of a big concrete expanse which also has a station (on the other side) for asbestos drop-offs, and is close by the metal drop-off section and the concrete waste section - where people drop off random, assorted waste of this kind (only stipulation: no "chemicals"), stinks, and has noxious air, even though a guy in a bulldozer comes along regularly to push the junk away, leaving a noxious, plasticky mud in his wake. The soil nearby, and around the place, is probably highly toxic, and I wouldn't be surprised if the employees who stand idly nearby and occasionally look around to monitor the activities of the dumpers get cancer and neurological problems from spending time in the foul miasma. The whole place is disgusting.
Consider how much of your shit will end up in landfill. Probably the vast majority. What a monstrous thing.
Most people do not visit tips. They do not visit landfills. They do not stand there in the stink, acquiring diseases as the minutes go by. They do not inhale the stench; it is buried far away from where they live, somewhere 'safe', where the extreme pollution of the soil and the air won't matter to them. But we can't avoid the stench forever. Day by day, more of the tiny percentage of the earth's soil fit for agriculture is sullied by toxic compounds, or flies away in the wind. It doesn't get replenished. And the waste still piles up. And who is going to stop us? My parents are green-minded, but they still let their house get filled to the fucking brim with endless shit, a lot of which has been dumped in the fashion described.
Nobody thinks green issues are urgent, because they cannot see the carnage right in front of them. We may live in a post-industrial, technological society, but we still rely on the soil and the rain and the air. And they are all being destroyed.
You forgot about the garbage island in the Pacific.
ReplyDeleteMy professional advice to you: Don't think about it. Go have a pint.