Disposable Culture

 

The other night I read about this site called TED.com their byline is "ideas worth spreading". Lover of ideas and learning that I am, I journeyed to the site and watched Capt. Charles Moore talk about the great Pacific Gyre (read floating garbage heap the size of the Unites States). All that crap, all that waste floating about in the Pacific that cannot be retrieved and cleaned up...I wanted to throw up. I have to confess to being an anti-litter freak, I have picked up others garbage and presented it to them saying things like "you forgot to throw this away, I thought you might want to do that!" The incredulous looks I have received, who cares, pick up after yourself because news flash: this world is not your personal dumping ground. I found the Pacific Gyre as hard to digest as the albatross community that dies and regurgitates our human garbage.

On Tuesday I found a local Audubon bird sanctuary, smack dab in Houston in one of the prestigious neighborhoods. What a gem! Everyone loaded into the car to check out a section of the Great Texas Migratory Path, we went to look for nests and colorful birds. The picture above is what we saw the most of. Garbage, stranded in a creek, floated down from elsewhere or sometimes contributed by the inhabitants from the homes backing up to the creek. Perhaps I am naïve in thinking that if you have curb-side recycling you wouldn´t throw your unwanted furniture over you back fence to collect creekside. This jaunt proved to me that money does not build social responsibility. What I do know is that if I had money to spend upwards of $500K on a home I would donate my furniture, to my maid or gardener, to Goodwill. What I also know is I would walk down that slope to the creek, motivate myself and my children to clean that crap up, we´d take the pool cleaner, we saw lots of pools on those properties, you know they have pool cleaning equipment.

For 10 minutes I stood and stared at the stagnant mass of garbage, the idea flashed into my mind to walk down there, start cleaning but then my outrage began rising. Instead, I´m going to print the picture and deliver it to the doorsteps of the houses backing up to the offensive mess and make a suggestion...get outside of your house and live your life in this world. Clean up your act because others should not have to clean up your household debris, teach your children and yourselves to step away from whatever the diversion may be and clean this up. The gross negligence behind their fences is forgotten and if we all choose to shove our crap under the rug, so to speak, what value do WE as humans have in this world. The manicured lawns in that neighborhood were lovely but it´s all for naught because I see the skeletons in the closets and those skeletons are hideous.