More Opportunity for Junk »
Drive down nearly any road in the country and you'll see cigarette butts lining the gutters. But is this because there are more people who don't care and are dumping their butts out the window instead of in the ash tray? Perhaps. But perhaps it's also because there are so many people in so many cars in so much traffic with so many options for acquiring trash, that it's bound to have side effects.
The growth of the fast food industry has created a huge number of options for having more trash than we can handle. While our ancestors trudged through snow uphilll to school (in both directions), we have convenience on every corner. This introduces an amazing amount of trash into our lives. This is trash that simply wasn't there for previous generations. Sure, you might find a burger joint now and again, but there weren't 30,000 McDonald's, where each surely generates tons of disposables every day.
I won't say this absolves us of all responsibility - not by a long shot. It just means we need to work harder. I mentioned a few weeks ago that I had joined the ranks of the unemployed. During those weeks, we've done a lot of eating in - and it's amazing when we consider the money we spend and the crap that builds up from that fairly simple occurence in most people's lives. If nothing else, we've learned that.
Comments (2)
Yeah, my wife and I go through phases of "being good" and eating-in and marvel at the monetary savings. Alas, we eventually fall off the wagon. It is a cyclical thing.
I find eating-in easier in the summer time when salads and BBQ fair is the norm.
In my household I've always said that we'd be rich if it were for two things: eating out, and telephone services (home phone, additional lines, mobile phones + web + SMS + etc., long distance, the list goes on).
Posted by Frank | January 27, 2004 12:28 PM
I understand completely. Here in our house, we actually have a shared cell phone plan, which handles most of our telecom needs. The Internet is a bit extra, of course, but as far as phones + mobile phones + voice mail + long distance is all on one bill.
There are times where we think it would be nice to have a land line again, but I think we're just too used to the convenience of having our two cell phones.
Posted by Chad Everett | February 2, 2004 11:25 AM