Every time I put the trash out, I feel guilty for adding to the enormous pits of refuse to be found in every major city in the world.  I fear that at some point we will not be able to hold it all and it really disturbs me.  Recycling is helpful.  But, is it enough?

It wasn’t always like this.  People used to have their milk delivered in glass bottles and the bottles would be returned, cleaned and refilled  to be delivered over and over again.  Nobody used kleenex.  There were handkerchiefs to be washed and ironed and reused until they wore out completely.  There were no disposable diapers, or dishes or silverware.  I could go on and on and on.  

And now we have many kinds of toxic trash, some of which didn’t even exist when I was a kid.  Old computers and batteries and pharmaceuticals have become special types of hazardous waste.  It can only get worse.  Some things will never become recyclable.

So, what do we do?  What can we do?  First of all recycling must become automatic for everyone.  This is a no-brainer.  This is the easiest thing we can do. Reuse everything as much as possible.  Use less of the things that cannot be recycled or reused.  Be considerate of one another.  This is our world, not just yours or mine.  Like it or not, we share it.

We need to become more creative and think of new ways of doing things.  Most of us don’t need a lot of what we have.  We may want it, but do we really need it? Can we use things longer and not buy the next, best version of this and that?  Do we really need to buy the newest model of a phone just to discard the one we have that still works?  Can we give some of the things we don’t want to those in need?

Trash is just one of those things that will never go away.  More people live on this earth everyday.  Everyone contributes to the garbage.  And everyone needs to take responsibility for their own junk.  Period.