Associating Our Health with Earth’s Health
There were many events going on in communities this weekend in honor of Earth Day. Monroe celebrated in St. Mary’s Park, Grosse Ile had events, the Toledo Zoo had Earth Day celebrations and there was the 16th Annual Lake Shore Cleanup at Lake Erie Metro Park this weekend. And do we need a clean-up.
Has anyone else noticed more roadside litter? I pass by other property of mine on my daily walks so I notice the garbage I need to get out of the ditches. It’s no longer beer or liquor bottles strewn about but empty plastic bottles of Vitamin water, Aquafina, Sunny D, and one of those flavored waters.
The discards are representative of health conscious human consumption. The fact that these human litterbugs care about their personal health but not the earth’s health is ironic. Taking care of ourselves is futile if we do not take care of the environment that sustains us. It’s a matter of math for Pete’s sake.
I see human populations growing, and pollution growing exponentially along with it. And the pollution is stuff that just doesn’t decompose like plastic.
An example of old plastic: This weekend I was fluffing rocks. I have river rock in my landscape and tossing them aside and putting the dirt back under the weed barrier refurbishes the rock. I end up with buckets of river rock that were sinking into the ground, which I put back on top of the mound. Lot’s of work but it’s therapeutic too.
Well I’ve been lax. I haven’t tossed rocks for about 5 years. I found the plastic weed barrier had sunk about 8 inches down into the ground. Years ago perforated plastic was used as a barrier. It was still there after 17 years and sinking. All I could think is what if layers of plastic built up? Would it eventually solidify into one humongous block of plastic? Nothing could be dug where it existed until it sunk deep enough, and would this block keep traveling downward into the earth? What kind of sticky goo would it become as it heats?
Scary thought, an earth filled with pockets of digested, melted plastic.
One of the simplest things we can do for the earth is not litter, and recycle whenever we can. We’re slowly learning to take care of ourselves with the food and drink choices we make. To throw the plastic litter from these healthy choices onto the ground is an unconscious act we need to break. Once we begin to associate the idea of health and maintenance to our world and everything in it not just ourselves, I believe things will begin to improve greatly. Besides, it is almost impossible to be healthy while living in an unhealthy environment.
April 21st, 2008 at 8:23 pm
I’ve walked around my block already three times with trash bags to pick up litter. I think it was a worse spring than usual for the junk.
April 22nd, 2008 at 8:11 am
Looks like that to me too. People just don’t connect the dots anymore.