We've been to the moon, are able to send rovers to Mars, tout Artificial Intelligence as a productive future force and look to technology for new solutions to old problems. Yet our planet is drowning in rubbish, plastic or otherwise, and we seem to be unable or unwilling to do anything about this, other than on a small scale individual basis while being derided by the majority. A majority that is happy to destroy our world for the sake of convenience, just that - fuck everything so long as I can have an easy life!
I am sorry that I have seen very little new on recycling, other than that the 'civilised' Western countries until recently were sending most of their goods to be recycled in China and the Far East in general, in a blatant case of 'Out of Sight, Out of Mind'. So long as we choose to bully our citizens to recycle, rather than inform them as to why, educating them and showing the facilities and methods available, taking the majority opinion with us, we have a weak position. When rubbish is shipped halfway across the world just so long as we do not have to think about it, we are all complicit with the destruction and waste it entails.
Where do manufacturers get off bringing products to market in non-recyclable - and in many cases harmful to the environment - materials purely for convenience or cost reasons? Is there a greater cost than the destruction of our world? What is the excuse?
The USA - and don't get me wrong, I have been a fan of America most of my life - is a huge producer of rubbish at a much higher percentage than their population. It is also a technological leader, a world superpower with immense ability to tackle problems intelligently and efficiently. Why isn't President Trump and his colleagues encouraging the development of ever more efficient recycling practices, but allows them to still choose ship ton upon ton halfway around the world at tremendous cost? Is it that rubbish is not a glamorous field to attract the great minds, minds that are able to conceive and create iPhones and their like, amazing computers and other superb products? Or is it that they are engaged in pursuing short-termism, unicorns and easy profit - hell, I'll get what I can now, in the long term we're all dead, anyway - to the exclusion of all else?
We need to do better, folks everywhere and not just in the USA, we need to do better NOW! There are no excuses, whatever strange orange people might say; the truth is that they don't care. If we do nothing, though, we who DO care, our world will be destroyed. What a legacy that will be for our children and our children's children - shame on us!
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