JUNK, JUNK AND MORE JUNK

After staying here for 4 months, I could say that Japan has a very good system of garbage collecting. I only wish it were the same in the Philippines. But of course, easier said than done. Here, trash is segregated. Wherever you go, there are usually bins with labels on them for specific trash. In the Philippines, one rarely finds such a thing. Sure, we segregate them at home or at the office, but when the garbage truck arrives, they put them all in one place. So what's the use? Here, a different garbage truck picks up household trash and another truck picks up the bottles and paper. After that, they are brought to the recycling plant. Back home, trash is usually dumped in a landfill and then the poor people who need money search for recyclables - and without protective wear. =( Sigh.

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Ruther and I read an article in Metropolis magazine about the supermarkets' and groceries' excessive use of plastics (read here, I promise, it's not boring). The author, Kevin McGue, said that when he buys a small item, the cashier hands him a plastic and he usually declines the bag. Ruther and I agreed that it really was so here in Japan. Sometimes, they give you extra bags or sometimes, they bag some items and put them in an even bigger plastic bag. The author was concerned about how these plastics would affect our environment (according to him, it takes 1,000 years for one to photodegrade). He said that a person usually receives around 300 plastics annually. That's a LOT of bags! Maybe it is about time we get rid of these environmentally-harmful bags. When I go home, I'm going to send some emails and letters to malls and fast-food chains about changing their bags. You can bet on it! Everyone has to do their part, don't you think?

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The earth is a dying planet. I usually hear this on environmental shows and although not many believe it to be so, there's no doubt, Mother Earth is very sick. Mankind has become too greedy, too power-hungry (plus the lack of concern for the environment), that our only home in the universe is now dying. How did it come to this? When exactly did the ball start rolling downhill?

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We are not only polluting Mother Earth, we're also polluting space! I read that in the many space launches carried out (approximately 4,000 since 1957), there are about 10,000 large objects and millions of debris floating above the earth. Sigh. What's the use of technology if we can't be responsible users?