by Karen Telleen-Lawton, Noozhawk Columnist (read the original in Noozhawk by clicking here)
When I was growing up, trash was becoming visible as a public issue. Moviegoers commonly left trash behind in the theater. Beaches were strewn with it. After summer beach days, my folks would hand us empty bags to fill with beach trash while they prepared hot dogs and s’mores for a campfire dinner.
As a student in the early 1970s, my brother started the first recycling center at the high school in our L.A. suburb. Recycling has been the norm for decades. We all sort and feel good about our service to the earth.
But suddenly, it’s visible again. China and other countries no longer accept the recyclables we so blithely barged to them. Garbage gyres from myriad sources circle in our oceans and microplastics fill our fish.
Southern California still has the highest levels of ozone and does not meet federal standards for fine-particle pollution. Landfills overflow, while the USDA tells us 30-40 percent of food produced is wasted.
I’m reminded of an old New Yorker cartoon that still graces my desk. It shows Earth, scratching its head in annoyance as if itchy with lice, complaining to another nearby planet, “I’ve got humans!”
If only we faced immediately the true consequences of our actions. How much easier it would be to say “no” to sweets if the calories passed immediately from our lips to our hips, as the slogan goes.
We’d use much less plastic if our own discards showed up in the next piece of fish we cut into, or the pollution from our own cars were piped into our bedrooms for us to breathe through the night.
Wouldn’t we make wiser purchase decisions if we were forced to take cradle-to-grave responsibility for any product we purchased — plus its packaging?
Albert Einstein was famous for problem-solving. “If I had an hour to solve a problem,” he is quoted as saying, “I’d spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and five minutes thinking about solutions.”
And so we wonder: what kind of a problem is trash?
In the 1960s, we determined it to be a beautification problem. Signs in theaters and other public spaces popped up, requesting people to pick up after themselves. Volunteer groups cleaned up their neighborhoods and natural spaces.
Then-first lady Lady Bird Johnson pitched beautification of America’s cities and highways. On family road trips of my childhood, mom called piles of tires or smoking dumps “Lady Bird’s downfall.”
In the ’70s, we decided it was a safety issue. Under President Richard Nixon, we passed the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts, as well as establishing the National Environmental Policy Act. Air became breathable when I was in high school.
From the 1980s and beyond, trash was considered an education issue. Millennial and Gen Xer curricula included lessons on taking care of the planet.
Young adults are now comfortable with recycling, but they are also comfortable with the quantum increase in trash typified by disposable diapers, convenience meals, and online shopping purchases packed to survive climate change.
What do we do when what we’ve done hasn’t been enough? The bottom-up solutions of education and beautification are not cutting it, and top-down protections are being dismantled at frightening speed. We’ve been dabbling in solutions for over half a century: time is no longer on our side.
The trash issue needs all of us designing and implementing solutions at all levels.
One way you can partake is to attend an upcoming Westmont College symposium titled What should we do about the trash we produce and how we dispose of it?
Part of the National Issues Forums (NIF), Westmont’s Initiative for Public Dialogue and Deliberation “seeks to elevate discussion on critical issues that matter in our community.”
Westmont’s trash talk forum will be 7-9 p.m. April 4 at First Presbyterian Church, 21 E. Constance St., Santa Barbara. RSVP for limited seating to: WIPDD@Westmont.edu.
Karen Telleen-Lawton, Noozhawk Columnist
Karen Telleen-Lawton is an eco-writer, sharing information and insights about economics and ecology, finances and the environment. Having recently retired from financial planning and advising, she spends more time exploring the outdoors — and reading and writing about it. The opinions expressed are her own.