Garbage Gone

A big reason why there’s a lack of environmental awareness

What you see (Source: a real image made by a real person: me!)

"Throw it out." How often have we thought or said that? We have something, but we no longer want it, so we throw it out.

Where is "out?"

We don't know where "out" is. We don't even think about it. We throw what we don’t want in the garbage, and it's gone, just gone.

Your garbage is now gone, but that garbage is only gone for you. Well, la dee da good for you. What you threw out still exists, it just exists elsewhere.

You're pretty selfish, aren’t ya? You didn't want that thing anymore, so you just made it a burden for someone else, and not just for the garbage collector.

I read once that in medieval cities, people would throw the contents of their chamber pots out the window into the street below. Some historians dispute this oft-told story, but this was a time without indoor plumbing, so arrangements had to be different. People had to have a different relation to their waste.

Now, granted you aren't tossing excrement out your window, but what are you throwing out and what are the potential effects on the rest of the world?

Never thought of that question? Okay, I won't be cruel, who has? We all just toss out what we no longer want and think…