Incursio

All right, maybe not a "failure"  - more like a deficiency.  However sensationalist headlines draw in more readers, and since you may be my only one - I need all the help I can get. Memphis seems to have OK recycling programs for a city in this region, although still not that great in general.  One thing that I found frustrating is the requirement to cut down corrugated.

I have written in the past about how much plastic we consume, and throw away - and the permanent nature of plastics. ( Every bit of plastic ever made still exists. ) Almost 90 percent of floating marine debris is plastic. Plastic and other trash in our oceans is estimated to be killing more than a million sea birds and 100,000 mammals and turtles each year according to United Nations reports Curbside recycling in Portland, and the metro area is pretty good. We do a good share better than many other cities of the United States, that is for sure. But there is a huge amount of plastics that we can't recycle at the curb - and it always pains me to throw them in the trash. We can do better! I just found this tidbit , you can recycle all sorts of plastic that they don't pick up at the curb! Check out the Plastic Roundup , coming in October (and is actually a fairly regular event). Start saving up all those plastics that you normally throw away, and give them new life!...

At a large company in downtown Portland, we worked hard to have facilities put in recycle bins. I had no idea that there was so much involved but finally we get them. Nice! So today I go to take a few bottles and cans, and the "trash only" bin has lots of bottles and cans in with the trash, and the "bottles and cans" bin has lots of trash in with the bottles and cans. Damn it people, it is three bins. Clearly labeled. How f'ing hard is this? Are my standards for humanity too high?

If you have ever crate trained a pet dog, you will have found that dogs will do everything within their power to not shit where they sleep. A dog will hold it until their face turns blue. Unless of course they are already blue, then they will just get a darker shade. And if you (and the dog) have had the misfortune of getting stuck a little to long, and the dog HAS had to go in their crate, the minute the poor canine makes eye contact with you - you know it. The dog will feel as though they have betrayed the universe by pooping in the crate. Well, humans are assholes. We could learn a thing or two from our dogs. We only have one earth. Only one. No "fall back" or "plan B" exists despite what you may see in the Star Trek movies or read in the Cristopher Stasheff or Orson Scott Card novels. I imagine that some day some poor wasted species - a distant relative to the Human - who has had to survive underground or in bubbles without being able to breathe ...