need to vent about needless waste? i do!!!

[5littlehippies]

:hippie: my babies turned a year old a couple of weeks ago and i threw a party. i realized i did not have enough regular silverware for everyone. to be sure i had enough i purchased some plastic forks.

everyone who was invited knows how i am and that i am big on recycling and reusing whenever possible. yet, after everyone left and i set out to clean up i found that all of the plastic silverware had disappered... so, i investigated.

i found that all of the plastic forks except 3 had ended up in my trash can!!!! you can imagine my shock and disgust. i spent the better part of a half hour digging through the trash to retrieve the plastic forks that had been thoughtlessly thrown away.

well, it's been bothering me ever since that my family and friends would be so careless...especially since all i hear from most of them are friendly cracks about me being a tree hugger and such...hell some of my friends don't even call me by my name...they just call me hippie.

it boggles the mind!!! why would you want to add to the landfills instead of wash and reuse something like a plastic fork...i don't even want to think about how many plastic utensils have been cast off and are taking up space in a landfill and smothering Mother Earth!!! :mad:

[toman]

People are just too concerned with "real life" to bother with such trivial little things... You know, things like getting that big promotion, kissing the boss's ass, making that next lease payment, paying for little Jimmy's soccer lessons... People in my family make fun of me because when I use a paper towel for something, I tear it in half or quarters and save the rest for next time. I figure why use an entire paper towel if half of one will clean up that mess just fine? Or better yet, use a sponge. When I check the oil in a car, I *gasp* wipe the dipstick with my finger and thumb! What a freak I am, not feeling the need to carry around paper towels to check the oil. And using newspaper to clean glass? What a silly notion! Paper towels, cotton towels, they all just grow on trees, right? I guess everyone has to draw a line somewhere though... I mean, sure I could wipe my ass with my hand, but toilet paper is much nicer. Although, a bidet might be a cost-effective investment. :bandit:

[5littlehippies]

:hippie:

i know it's all about convenience...what a shame!!!

people laugh at me because when i am out somewhere and have a drink in a can or bottle with me and i finish it, i aways ask if they hve a recycling bin. if they say no, i put it in my bag and carry it back home to put it in my recycle bin. that exact thing happened at the doctor's office yesterday. the nurse just shook her head and said "it's only one bottle...you can just pitch it"

my (very polite) reply was " i will just pitch it...in my recycle bin when i get home...i have 4 kids that need to have a clean earth to live on when they grow up." she just gave me the strangest look and walked away. :bawl:

some people are so self consumed that they are blind to the world around them. every time i turn around i am seeing perfectly good buildings being knocked to the ground so someone can come along and build a new one in it's place...why not just fix up the old ones???

i try to always conserve and reuse or recycle...it just seems natural to me to do so...why can't everyone be that way.

speaking of recycling....i posted about a web site earlier...you should check it out: www.freecycle.org ...have you heard of it? it's a great yahoo group that asks people to offer up their unwanted items and give someone else a chance to give them a new home instead of sending them to a landfill...and it's absolutely free. i've been a freecycler now for about 2 months...it's a great idea...i've gifted many things and have had things gifted to me. i wish i would have thought of this idea myself...but, i'm glad someone did. :hippie:

[PEACE FROG]

I believe the same as you, but have lazy careless habits. Hats off. And boy you sure caught toman in a good mood. ;)

[toman]

I think we all have lazy habits; (not hobbits, thats a different thread.) I know I'm not a saint. But, I think if we're at least concious and make an effort, we can do a lot better than most even if we do still have little things that aren't perfect. Oh, and I'm really not a dickhead, I'm actually a really laid-back guy who's easy to get along with. It's just that a lot of people are offended by my ideas, and when they get all shocked they get mad, and then it looks like I'm the bully, when in fact I'd just like to have a nice conversation... oh well, their loss I guess. :D It's not my blood pressure that's up... :cheers:

[LIBRA]

Oh, and I'm really not a dickhead, I'm actually a really laid-back guy who's easy to get along with. It's just that a lot of people are offended by my ideas, and when they get all shocked they get mad, and then it looks like I'm the bully, when in fact I'd just like to have a nice conversation... oh well, their loss I guess. :D It's not my blood pressure that's up... :cheers:


I for one like the diversion you bring. Your real. And say with you think with out conviction, I persobally think that is a good thing. But your right when people dont understand or are shocked the first emotion out is not trying to understand, its usually anger. I have been guilty of that myslef. :)

[Penny_Lane]

People in my family make fun of me because when I use a paper towel for something, I tear it in half or quarters and save the rest for next time. I figure why use an entire paper towel if half of one will clean up that mess just fine? Or better yet, use a sponge. When I check the oil in a car, I *gasp* wipe the dipstick with my finger and thumb! What a freak I am, not feeling the need to carry around paper towels to check the oil.




Such moral ideals for a self proclaimed amoral person!

[LIBRA]

Such moral ideals for a self proclaimed amoral person!


Were do you get off??? I mean im not here to defend toman, but really. Stop judging everyone already. Toman has been posting here for years and he may have some off the wall radical ways of thinking but thats his freakin choice. You dont know him. Everyone has morals of somesort. And the only ones I have seen form you so far have been negative in someway. Imo.

I really could care less, I just wanted to put my 2 cents in, on such a sarcastic post. Its 2006 btw, we are the new generation of hippies, I wish theyd come up with a new freakin term. im sick of the labels.

[toman]

Protecting and preserving our environment is not a moral issue, it's a practical one. If we destroy our world before we learn to escape it, we die. If we die, we fail at the game. I for one am in favor of us winning, so it only makes sense to make an effort to preserve our environment. :cheers:

[Reason]

Protecting and preserving our environment is not a moral issue, it's a practical one.

Well said, and so true.

And 5littlehippies, I know what you mean. I wash and re-use ziploc bags, because they make them SO STRONG now, you can literally use them multiple times, for multiple purposes. Well, one day a friend of mine saw three or four of them drying in my dish rack with my other dishes, and asked me how I was doing on money. As if the only reason I would re-use something is because I can't afford a new one! I can financially afford it... but I don't think we can ecologically afford it.

Cheers to you for digging the forks out of the trash.

[toman]

Totally. I always have zip-locks hanging from my towel racks by clothespins... I always think people coming over are going to think I'm some kind of dreanged hobo with a bag fetish. :D

[Cream616]

Not to be extremely negative, but are all of your conservation efforts nothing but a mental comfort. While I agree that the environment needs protect and conservation, will a half of a paper towel or a plastic bag gone to waste end the world. Probably not, but of course everyone will say every little bit helps. Agreed but instead of drying your plastic bag spend that time writing a letter to your local congressman or organize a recycling drive in your community. Often I feel things that could atually make a diference are not done because those who would be willing to do them are to busy purging their own lives of insignificant or imagined heresies. I dont like metally comparing conservationists to nazis and christians. Just chill alittle.

[toman]

Well, I will admit that for me it is a bit of a fixation, but I figure ever little bit helps. :-/

[lovinleo]

i agree with you toman, ever little bit does help. but only if we got others to think that way. most people would say this smal wrapper i throw on the ground or this can i do not reclye won't make a difference but it does. there are so many people thinking that way that it pilies up to a huge amouth of little bits. if everyone just though about what they were doing and became resomsibe to conserve everthing and recycle then we would not be in this situation.

[bobinbed]

Where I live (A town in Sweden) we recycle/reuse almost everything. You've got to - it is in the law. We sort our rubbish in different fractions:

Glass
Plastic
Paper
metal
electronics
Organic
environmentally dangerous

The rest is used as fuel in the local powerplant.

We also have a system where you get a refund in the shop for returning empty glass bottles and cans that have been used to contain beverages. The glass bottles are sent back to the place that makes the drinks and are cleaned and reused. The cans are collected and melted to be reused to avoid aluminium to end up in nature.

[toman]

^^^ So, in your opinion, why is such a with-it and foward thinking country still against cannabis? surely the people understand what a non-issue it is...

[bobinbed]

Even though Sweden has gone very far within the environmental field the society as a whole is ruled with a Big Brother mentality. There is not much freedom here. For instance, the state has decided that people are not responsible enough to handle alcohol so as a result, you must be 20 to buy alcohol and you can't do it in the supermarket. You have to queue up in an off-licence alcohol store that closes at six pm and is closed saturdays and sundays. You cannot smoke in restaurants and pubs and drinking alcohol in parks and other open areas is forbidden. So smoking pot is forbidden too.

The Swedish state make ridiculous laws to protect people from themselves basically. It's like you never get to grow up here and make your own decisions.

I am proud of our environmental work though. I work with nature preservation, environmental penalty charges and lakes for a job and I love it.

[toman]

Interesting. One of the reasons I ask is that my family is Swedish, my great grandparents came here from Sweden. I also have had several Swedish friends over the years. I guess I've always had a bit of curiosity about where my "people" came from... :D

[bobinbed]

Wow! That's cool! :)
I've got relatives in Pennsylvania.

[yarnfaerie]

I lived with three other people in an over cramped 2br apartment. And no one recycled!!!! Including my boyfriend!!!! You can imagine the amount of trash that was built up. It was very frustrating, but now I just live with my boyfriend, and I MAKE him recycle. It's hard to break peoples' old habits, but I'm not going to stop trying!!! :hippie:

[toman]

The only person I know anymore who doesn't recycle is my Gradfather. It drives me insane watching him throw crap in the garbage... He thinks recycling is just some over-rated silly little thing that "you kids" do these days, because we don't work as hard as people of his generation did and have all this free time to do things like that. :bawl:

[Lufkin]

tom discussed this in the unmoderated topic forum yesterday...

[toman]

tom discussed this in the unmoderated topic forum yesterday...
The hell? Troll? :bandit:

[LIBRA]

tom discussed this in the unmoderated topic forum yesterday...



LOL


He did?? That tom he is just TO much,lol

[Buffalo Head '75]

I had a boss that believed that hybrid cars were the result of people having too much discretionary spending and because of that they owned two cars...

ok, maybe...

then he went on to rant that if only people from other countries couldn't just walk right into this country (he lost me here....) then people would have to work for a living all the time and they wouldn't have two cars (huh?), like (favorite expression to come) "the good ol' days".

He then went on to women in the workplace and the second car thing.

It may have been the flat out stupidest thing I have ever heard.



The only person I know anymore who doesn't recycle is my Gradfather. It drives me insane watching him throw crap in the garbage... He thinks recycling is just some over-rated silly little thing that "you kids" do these days, because we don't work as hard as people of his generation did and have all this free time to do things like that. :bawl:

[toman]

^^^ I bet from there he went on to ranting about the Jews and everything, eh? ;)

[TreeLove]

I work for a company that runs the concessions and lodging for a few national parks and resorts. This company has made many of it's contracts because of it's firm enviromental conservation stance and it's own policy called "ecologics". A policy that dictates the way refuse should be handeled by it's employees.

For some reason I have yet to discover, in the park I work for the company decided to stop recycling in the middle of this last summer season. The Recycler was told to take recycled products to the dump, instead he continued taking our recycling to the proper center and we are currently trying to figure out why this change was made, why we weren't notified, if this is a breach of contract, and how best to resolve this irrational decision and reinstate our recycling program.

On a similar note, the Penn and Teller show "Bullshit" has done an episode on recycling. They attempt to expose recycling as a costly sham, well every part of it except aluminum cans which are the only cost effective recycled product. If anyone has seen this show I would love to discuss it.

I personally don't think making a profit off recycled material is the point. The point of recycling is that we conserve our resources. The show claims that there is no shortage of landfill space, but then why was there ever a barge of garbage floating along the east coast, getting passed along because no one wanted to deal with it? And who really wants all the non -commercial, -residential, and -industrial space on the planet to be left as landfill space. I personally enjoy the relatively untouched-by-industry wilderness.

The show does make some good points about recycling programs though. Mainly that they're in desperate need of reinvention. Could you imagine your town's recycling crew riding bikes through the nieghborhoods to collect recyclables? There is so much room for innovation when it comes to recycling, why do we always keep to what we know and allow things to run indefinetly the way they are? (i am aware that this statement is an unfair generalization, there are many people who do what they can to shake present systems)

Jerry Garcia used to say something like "Chaos and disorder lead to new order" are you ready to ride the bus?

Share your mind,
TreeLove

[toman]

You're car's butt smells bad!!

Ack. Error. Must. Cut. Myself. :kngt: