Super Eco

Photo credit: thelastminute on flickr

"Human society sustains itself by transforming nature into garbage."  Mason Cooley

"It's a job that's never started that takes the longest to finish."  JRR Tolkien

"Do not wait for extraordinary circumstances to do good action; try to use ordinary situations."  Jean Paul Richter

It seems that we humans are caught in the crushing curl of our own giant wave of trash. A long, sad and glorious tradition of using and dumping that spans the entirety of our time on earth.

We have evolved in so many ways yet our methods of dealing with our detritus have not changed that much. Dumping, burning, waste minimization and recycling follow us everywhere we go on Earth, like the swirl of brown dust that follows the beloved Pigpen in Charles Schultz's Peanuts cartoon. Lovable and messy, that's us!

Here are some ways we can all help to green our less-than-stellar human trash-timeline:

1. If we won't or can't clean it up, do not bring unnecessary stuff onto a beach, park, campsite or any other dedicated open space. Always follow the "pack it in...pack it out" principle. Leave nothing, take only pictures. Birds, fish and wildlife everywhere will want to hug us! This also sets a really great example for our small humans, who will inherit the Earth.
2. Leave each place we go cleaner than we find it. I have always admired people on the street who pick up and properly dispose of other people's trash everywhere they go. These are true everyday heroes. It is a great green exercise to bend, pick and toss, any trash we come across, into the proper receptacle.
3. Become aware; keep our friends close, keep our trash closer. By keeping a close watch on how much trash we throw away we can begin to get an idea of the magnitude of our own personal trash cloud. Remember: out of sight, out of mind.
4. Can we please quit building giant floating trash islands in the middle of the ocean. Swear a solemn oath to never, ever again avail ourselves of the dreaded plastic shopping bag. Let's start and or sign a petition to get them banned in our state, province or country. Just imagine, if we can, a landscape without dirty plastic bags blowing in the trees, what a concept.
5. Keep it in our car and not on the roadway! Roadway trash--typically cigarette butts--is a huge problem for the environment. Newsflash: cigarette butts are extremely toxic and chock full of water, soil and animal poisoning chemicals. Yikes, did we know this before we smoked 'em?
6. If our tendencies run towards laziness, consult the Lame Environmentalist for some great ways to trick ourselves into being green.
7. Let's all go to our windows, open them and shout "Let's love the earth and leave it better than we found it!"
8. No more excuses, we all know the drill by now: reduce what we consume, reuse it until it disappears into thin air, and recycle the rest.
9. The time is right for us all to get over our big-bad-old-selves and just do it!

Have a really great green day one and all!