“It wasn’t always like this.”
I looked up from the litter I was collecting in the park. Discarded trash was a constant battle in the city in which we lived before returning home. It became so bad that my wife and I organized events to pick up litter in the park followed by yard games with other families. The voice belonged to a very old man and I asked him what he meant, fully expecting to hear a lecture about how people were just more diligent back in his day and had more civic pride. He surprised me though.
-WiscoDave
Points to ponder....he's not wrong..
ReplyDeleteWhen I was a kid my parents, who had gone through the great depression and WW-II, before fast food, plastic bags and wrap lived by the rule: Use everything from the pig but its whistle.
ReplyDeleteEver since the Tylenol murders in 1982 packaging has gone crazy.
ReplyDeleteChild proof medicine caps work just as effective as senior citizen proof ones too.
DeleteIt's not just the 'disposable' mentality. Let's pick beer bottles. In Canada, they're still returnable, and last about a dozen trips, we were told. In the US, at least our customers (ex-glass plant employee here), the bottles were all single use, light weight, but returnable. WTF? We were told, due to the litigious environment, and the proliferation of shooter testubes (broken glass) and needles, none of the customers would chance reusable bottles.
Delete"...and our mindsets have all-too-quickly shifted to “Just get a new one” when something breaks down."
ReplyDeleteThis is America. America is all too quick to tear something down to build something new, with no mind to preserving history. Americans are all too quick to abandon a place where generations of their families have lived because of blight, crime, and taxes. No attempt is made to fight back or to put things back to where they were before. They just move on to another place, bringing the blight and crime with them. Along the way, they finish a coke or a fast food "meal" and throw the packaging out the window of the car, rationalizing the deed by saying "I'm providing work for someone." No, Mr. and Mrs. Mainstreet, you're not. You're crapping up a road in MY TOWN. The cans and bottles MAY be picked up by bums. The rest will stay there until they decompose... if they CAN decompose...
I give you Exhibit A, Yerronner: CALIFORNIA. Anyone who's lived here since, say, the 70's KNOWS what California used to be, and what it is now. Anyone who thinks their locale is immune from what happened here is given fair warning; we thought this way too back then...
And on the tack of California, we have a "governor" and a "legislature" that impose more and more restrictions on what we buy, what we use, and what we throw away. What is NEVER considered is going back to returnable bottles for things like milk and soda. Also never considered is engineering an afterlife for packaging. Remember the jelly jars that became juice glasses after they were emptied? Remember the Log Cabin Syrup bottles, shaped like, well, a LOG CABIN, that became coin banks? That kind of thing. No, it's always just another attempt at lowering the river instead of raising the bridge, and is almost ALWAYS another means of either control or taxation...
Folks, LEARN from California, DON'T REPEAT IT!!!
I wish I could give an upvote. I've been in California since 1967. It's a different planet now.
DeleteEvery time we take the pooch for a stroll, wife and I bring along two bags. One for pooch's poo and another for the random trash we always find along our path. We are not alone, for there are others in the development who pick up others' garbage. But ya know what? None of us who do are under 60. I don't think I've ever seen a Greta Thunberg type bend over to pick up an empty pop bottle. They'd rather grumble that we're leaving them a world gone to shit. But its not us old folk tossing those empty Monster drink cans out the window of a moving car.
ReplyDeletei always leave anyplace cleaner than i found it if possible. it's the O.C. in me i guess. or maybe the lectures i got growing up. it's not a bad thing, it's just respect for others. i try to live by a long lost word in these times-- Chivalry, look it up.
DeleteWhen I was but a young lad long ago, I became interested in electronics. I made my first money repairing TVs and radios. I eventually went into the field as a professional. I can tell you why TVs and radios are not repairable - but I can't repair them anymore; can't be done effectively.
ReplyDeleteIt's just a throwaway world
ReplyDeleteUptight and so afraid world
Out of sight and out of mind
Pretty soon you're out of time
--Insanity & the Killers 1970s
But back around 1900 and earlier, the problem was disposing of horse manure. Cities had to collect and haul away tons of the stuff every day. A far worse health impact than some plastic wrappers.
ReplyDeleteBack in the 1960s, Coke bottles were glass, and you got 2¢ for an empty. I'd walk down US 51 (2 blocks from my house) in the undeveloped areas and pick up bottles. Took them to a mini-mart. Made a $ plus each week.
ReplyDeleteI am old enough to remember that plastics were sold as the only answer to the huge mounds of trash. Seems they may not have been completely truthful in the sell.
ReplyDelete