Recently visited some friends in the US. We visited the mountains and took the ski lifts to the top saw a garbage can with two whole. One for ‘recycle’ and one for ‘landfill’… The whole ESG, sustainability thing seems a bit cult-ish, but that doesn’t mean we should be poor stewards with our environment.
One thing that always seems strange around the world is landfills. Why do people dig huge holes (landfills) and bury what they don’t ‘recycle’ in the ground?
In Japan, even many of the small cities have high-powered incinerators to burn up everything that can’t be recycled. After seeing this for decades, it is really hard to imagine burying your trash.
The garbage can next to the mountain ski lift spurred me to think… maybe it’s time for people to rethink landfills. Either burn it up, or recycle it if it doesn’t burn.
The Japan model seems to work well. It would be nice to see landfills eliminated. Our first family house was literally taken over by a dump that spread from behind the property overtaking the lush green pastures, and eventually overwhelming the house situated on that country road. The whole property is an now ugly landfill.
In the end, we’re supposed to be getting a new heaven and new earth… but for now it’s a good time to take a bit better care of the earth while we’re here.