Melanie is the host of Share Your World: https://sparksfromacombustiblemind.wordpress.com/2022/04/25/share-your-world-and-be-kind-to-the-earth-4-25-2022/

QUESTIONS

In your opinion, how are we affecting our planet? I think many of us are ruining it when we don’t need to be. I don’t think it is all optional though. For example, we are getting our kitchen redone (even though I just fired the contractor!). Each cabinet came with cardboard on top, on bottom, around the sides…The one around the sides is line with plastic so I roll it and use it for drop clothes when I paint, but the rest I just break down and put out for the town guys to get. I don’t even know if it is recycled or put in the trash! Anyhow, I understand that it is shipped that way to avoid damage but imagine if a truck just came and dropped off the cabinets? I mean in the end the company might break even when they don’t have to pay for the production and use of all that cardboard. Another huge example, that makes me so angry, is junk mail. In the “junk mail” category I regrettably include mail from charitable sponsors. I mean, if the Disable Vets of America stopped sending me envelopes, with the postage, and then calendars and labels, book marks, etc. wouldn’t they have more money for the cause? They really even aren’t that bad. My father who has Alzheimer’s is still receiving mailing labels for his old address from a few organizations. Now, firstly, when I started living with him I sent each one back with a note saying he had Alzheimers so take him off the mailing list. Secondly, it’s his old address! My stepmother who has now been gone for over a year is still getting mailing labels and other various gifts even though I sent all of them back for a while with the word DECEASED written on the front. That is so much paper and I haven’t even gotten to the advertisements or the local flyers for supermarkets. Must I go on? Don’t get me going on packaging and plastics…Or food containers…

What solutions would you offer to stem the multiple problems we face vis a vis the destruction of our planet home? I think the best thing is to try and reuse as much as possible. I know there is not always an option. Then you have the plastics that they say if you reuse them there are chemicals that go into whatever you put in them. I also think we need to come up with more efficient ways of recycling. I have learned that most of our recycling has always gone to China. According to my source, China recycles more because they don’t have the EPA standards on air emissions like the US. I don’t know if this is true or not, and I don’t care to have an argument about it, but with what is going on in our world, China isn’t taking our products anymore. One way that I think is a really good idea is reusing the land that is used for landfills as public properties that don’t rely on ground water. For example, football fields and stadiums. Pipe in the water for drinking but that is a lot of surface area that can be saved and used more affectively. Disclaimer: these are only my ideas and not backed by any research. I’m just saying these things ’cause I think of them!

Do you think it’s already too late and we could just do exactly as we’re doing now and things would turn out the very same? I don’t think it is ever too late overall. I mean, yes we have animals that are extinct as well as plants and so on, but many of them can be saved. Also, now that we have the means, take DNA of things in danger, just in case. The saddest part of all this is the people who rely on things like poaching to survive. I do NOT agree with poaching and I DO believe it should be illegal but how do you stop the people from selling Ivory if that is the only way they make their money? Maybe we need more of an educational program for the world, and not just the advanced countries.

Do you participate in things like “Arbor Day” (a U.S. Holiday dedicated to planting new trees) or Earth Day or Earth Month? I don’t because for a few reasons. First, I really never remember about it until it is here or gone and then I think it is too late. Second, I haven’t always had a place to plant a new tree. I also don’t cut down any trees so that sort of counts, I think.

Is any of it important in the ‘Big Picture’? Yes, of course! If we don’t all join together to change some of the things affecting the earth, then we might as well just keep hoping and holding off the inevitable. You can’t change just some of it. Yes, some is better than nothing, but if we all don’t care the same it won’t be the same. I think we have just gotten so advanced that people care about different things. Maybe with technology some of the products we used to buy will decrease and that might help. I know that some things are necessary and some things are produced for good reason. It is the mindless stuff, like all the junk mail, that aggravates me the most.

GRATITUDE SECTION

What can you personally do to participate in the “Clean Earth” movement? I don’t litter and I pick up my dog poop. Dog poop doesn’t necessarily hurt the earth, but it hurts people’s shoes and livelihoods. I also use rainwater and water from the condenser, to cut down on fresh water use. I try to limit the amount of plastic I buy, especially if it is the kind that cannot be recycled.

I do have an idea, that is taken off of another that is already done, but…take all those plastic bottles that are littering the worlds’ waters and fill them with sand from areas that need to be cleared. Use them to build homes for either the homeless or for those living in areas of such poverty. Also, teach people in disadvantaged countries more ways to help themselves. I don’t think there are any immediate things, per say, but I think every bit will help.