I am pleased to report this Murphy household is now officially off the bottled water. It took a while, but it hit me like a slap in the face the other day, while watering my plants. It was super hot, I was super thirsty, I had a hose in my hand, I turned the hose around and grabbed a quick drink from it. "EEEEEWWWWW! DAD JUST DRANK FROM THE HOSE!!" Right then it occurred to me, 'The Murphy's had gone soft." Sad, but true. I remember, as a kid, water to drink was everywhere. Every neighbor had a hose in their front yard. Even if they didn't have a hose, they had a hose bib. You had to squat and stretch a little bit more, but it was just as refreshing. As long as you followed two rules, you got a cold drink of water anywhere. 1. Let it run for at least 20 seconds for all the hot water to leave the hose, and 2. Give it another 20 seconds to clear out any spiders and bugs that might be still hanging on for the first 20 seconds.
Do you know who invented bottled water? The French. Yep. Remember Evian, Naive spelled backwards? Oh, they don't drink it there, but those Americans will......stupid Americans!
Now, I am guilty as anyone when it comes to the size of my carbon footprint, whatever that means. As a surfer, we tend to think we are 'greener' than others, because we enjoy the outdoors and Mother Nature, but we aren't. I drive my big truck to the beach, ride my toxic surfboard, wear my neoprene wetsuit (I'm not sure, but I don't think neoprene is found anywhere in nature.), bleach the ocean with my sunscreen, and probably about a million other things I am not aware of that is going to end civilization as we know it. So, I do what I can to help, however minute it may be. I have been a member of the Surfrider Foundation for years now. I write my representative about pending legislation that would pollute our beaches (OK, actually I sign a form letter sent to me from the Surfrider Foundation and send it to Sacramento electronically.), I pick up as much trash as I can hold walking from the waves to the truck each time I go out, I have started purchasing epoxy molded surfboards that will last more than one year and produce much less toxic waste that a traditional polyurethane and resin board (I know they are made by a 10 year old girl in a Chinese sweatshop probably, but one cause at a time people, I am only one man!), and now we have said goodbye to plastic water bottles (I hear there is a massive collection of plastic in the middle of the Pacific as big as Canada, but they might be exaggerating.)
When I was a kid, we didn't care about recycling. It was called 'collecting cans'. It didn't seem strange to us then, but I don't know how I would feel if my daughter spent an afternoon dumpster diving behind all the local bars, looking for aluminum cans and bottles. I can still smell the stale beer from those good ol days. I remember Ian and I had to rotate who gets the money from cans, and who gets the money from newspaper. I remember one hefty bag full of crushed cans monetarily equalled about 4.5 metric tons of newspaper.
The other day, as I was taking out the recycling to the gray bin, I couldn't help but wonder a few things:
a) Am I to believe they really have some poor MF'er, or an army of MF'ers when you do the exponential math, that actually sort through this stuff? Plastic, aluminum, steel, paper, etc.
b) How does this whole recycling work?
c) What about the paper labels on the glass jars?
d) What about different colored plastics.
e) Do I have to take the metal lids off the glass jars? When one particular MF'er comes across a glass jar with a paper label, and a metal lid, does he think "Oh, really funny, ASSHOLE!"
f) Does dog shit go in the trash or the green grass clipping compost bin? I play it safe and put a little in both. God knows I have enough of it.
g) And lastly, does Dawn really think they recycle the small amount of spaghetti sauce she left in the bottom of the Prego jar, the remnants of yogurt in the Yoplait cup, and the Spaghettios left in the can? I can just hear that same guy, "Oh, really funny, ASSHOLE!"
So to sum up: Do what you can to help out the environment. You alone aren't going to single handedly save or destroy the Earth. Every little bit helps. I probably should not have planted a tropical rainforest in my yard, considering I live in a fucking natural desert. (oh, it's pretty, but thirsty.) Buy a Britta.
But Mostly......Fuck those French.
3 comments:
A-men brother! so I guess Dawn is gonna get that Prius afterall, huh? And my neighbor tells me that the sanitation departments actually have an army of people that actually sort through the TRASH for recyclables and separate them, so we don't even have to use the recycle bins! I called bullshit and him lazy, but it would be interesting to research. I always wonder what happens to my lime slices sitting captive in my Corona bottles. incinerator fuel, I guess. I think we just created a new Seinfeld episode!
I WANT THE PRIUS!!
Anyway, CA is so much further ahead in recycling than HI. We only take uncolored glass, the metal tops have to be taken off the jars and bottles, a lot of plastic bottles aren't taken, etc. and we have to take them to the recycling trucks. There are only a few neighborhoods that have recycling cans. They have been "trying it out" for a couple of years now, but most of us "normals" don't have cans or pick up service. Come to think of it, there is no place to put the grass clippings and other landscaping stuff. We just throw it in the garbage. Now you would think an island would be more recycle friendly, but no, NOT US.
I don't know about the Prius. It is strange, but while we have fires that burn out of control, I mostly think of those hybrid, zero emission vehicles that boast that you are saving the planet. How many 'clean burning' cars did the last fire negate? Remember the Seinfeld episode when they drive all of the bottles to Michigan in Newman's mail truck so they can get the extra couple of cents for the redemption value? Classic.
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