1000 Flowers for the Planet - #550 Stop Buying Landfill
Every time I walk into a shopping centre (mall) all I see is
LANDFILL! Junk, junk everywhere! There are two dollar shops or five and dime
stores, or whatever you call them in your corner of the world, and they are
full of JUNK. They are full of useless items that are not designed to do
anything positive for your life. They are designed to take your money. Nick-knacks, toys, cheap kitchen utensils,
decorations, ‘collectables’, plastic bags, storage containers, throw-away
items, single use plastic, souvenirs – the list goes on and on. These things
will not make you happy, they will not enrich your life and they will not make
you more loveable. Go into a supermarket and try to find an item that does not
have plastic in it in some way – even our fruit and vege is often wrapped in
plastic. All of this junk and packaging goes into landfill, where it does NOT
disappear, it is preserved. It doesn’t mulch down or become smaller, it just
stays there and creates more problems for us. It is even contributing to global
warming. Remember, there is no such place as “away”. Your rubbish has to go
somewhere, and that is usually to landfill. So next time you pick up an item
that’s cute or fun, consider whether it really will add something to your life
or whether it will take up space in your home until one day you throw it into
landfill.
I’ve tried to find some statistics about landfill worldwide
but cannot find any useful up-to-date figures. There were 2,500 landfill sites
in the USA 20 years ago – with population increase and therefore an exponential
increase in the amount of waste, how many landfills must they have now? Aussies
are pretty bad at throwing stuff away too – 42% of construction waste goes to
landfill (what happened to recycling?).
We can make a start at reducing landfill by refusing to buy
stuff we don’t need, particularly useless junk that is meaningless to our
lives. Spend your money on family experiences, not landfill.
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