Over the winter, I find it difficult to take care of myself. My goals fall by the wayside (see: lack of serious blog published since fall) I stop exercising in the typical mammal-hibernation fashion, and eat carelessly. Every year is the Winter of My Discontent, and when I talk to others, they feel the same. "I can't seem to get motivated," they say. "It's so cold and dark, all I want to do is sleep."
I jokingly call January my "Try not to Kill Myself Month." All I can do is the basics to survive day to day, and take care of my family.
However, this blog, surprisingly, is not about me. It's not about Seasonal Affective Disorder, (appropriately abbreviated SAD)
This blog is about the EARTH.
We are seriously killing it.
There is a "trash vortex" a collection of plastic rubbish, floating in the Pacific Ocean. This mass was discovered by Charles Moore, an heir to an oil fortune, on a sailing trip from Los Angeles to Hawaii. Upon this atrocious discovery, Mr. Moore sold his business interests and became an environmentalist. This collection of post consumer waste is nearly twice the size of the continental US, and if we as a whole do not stop carelessly using so called disposable plastic products, it will continue to grow at an alarming rate. The smallest particles of plastic DO NOT BREAK DOWN. EVER. They stay in the ocean, are absorbed by all the life there, poison the water, the fish we eat, and make their way back to land, where they are incorporated into everything we eat, drink, and consume.
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/the-worlds-rubbish-dump-a-garbage-tip-that-stretches-from-hawaii-to-japan-778016.html
We, as Americans, are the ultimate consumers. We like convenience and quantity, and we don't want to think about the consequences of our love affair with plastic, styrofoam, and other products that never break down, or leach carcinogens into the environment, or even the food that we temporarily store in it.
Personally, I feel guilt whenever I use a plastic bag for my kid's sandwich or lunch money, because I know this bag is never going away. I have just began researching corn plastic storage/garbage bags, and and hoping to find something the replace the Ziplocs I use all too often. I haven't used plastic water bottles in almost a year, instead using lightweight steel bottles.
(Don't even get me started on plastic water bottles! These are rarely recycled and have been shown to leach cancer-causing chemicals into the water we drink from them. The bottle caps are NOT recyclable, even if the bottles make it to a facility.)
I would love to end with a message of hope. People are more aware than ever of the state of our planet. There are more recycled/ recyclable materials available, more easily accessible recycling facilities, and more environmentally friendly packaging than ever before. But the bottom line is that we as a whole need to drastically change our ways. Reduce, reuse, recycle. There are so many other concerns and worries right now, but this is paramount. Our planet is SAD. Take care of our planet, because if we don't, it won't matter if the housing market is down, because our entire planet will have crashed.
