On our last trip to Wisconsin, we drove past a very large landfill in Illinois.
I took the opportunity to teach my @little-peppers a bit about waste and the importance of making wise choices when making purchases and living life. Since the landfill was near the Missouri border, and since we had just driven through St. Louis, I think that may have been the source of a lot of the trash.
DISGUST
Honestly, I was both disgusted and embarrassed when I explained to my @little-peppers exactly what a landfill really was. When a civilization chooses to dig a giant whole and fill it with trash and refuse until it becomes a giant mountain, something should raise a red flag.
I can almost imagine someone in the generations to some asking about the giant hill; “Dad, what’s that giant hill there for?” The reply would be something like, “Well Son, that’s where everyone in Grandpa’s day buried their garbage.”
Wow, what a nice “gift” to leave all of those who will be here after we die!
As I thought about the incredibly large amount of waste that people can generate on a daily basis, it made me glad to consider the steps that my family is taking to change the way that we live our lives. Since I’m @papa-pepper, I’ll use a pepper to illustrate my point.
Commonly, Americans can go to the local super-center or grocery store and find some prepackaged Green Peppers for sale. These commonly come with some sort of Styrofoam tray that the peppers are set on. Then, the peppers were wrapped in some sort of plastic, and maybe even given a sticker. Perhaps they were even sprayed with some kind of wax to help keep them looking shiny and attractive.
Now I won’t even mention what may be in the peppers when it comes to GMO, pesticides, chemical fertilizers and other potential contaminants and health hazards, but I want you to consider the difference on the environment that purchasing peppers like this has.
Not only is there a lot of energy used in making the tray and plastic wrap, but there is also no practical use for this packing once the peppers are removed and consumed. Once way or another, it becomes waste, and most likely will end up in a landfill somewhere.
GROW YOUR OWN
When we contrast this method of getting peppers with growing your own, a few interesting things happen. Of course you can control, at least to some degree, what the plant gets exposed to and therefore potentially have a healthier and safer food, but what waste is there in this process.
When planting a seed in the soil and harvesting the food from it months later, there is no need to include the production, or disposal, of plastics and Styrofoam. There doesn’t need to be anything discarded into the garbage can once you eat the pepper.
THE POINT
It is this type of providing for one’s self and one’s family that I want to teach my children. Ultimately revolutions of the mind happen one person at a time. If I can teach and train my children to live a more wholesome, healthy, & connected life, then eventually they can add to the solutions, rather than to the problems… if they choose to.
Choice it what it always comes down to, but if we choose not to be a provider, grower, or producer, then we will have to be a consumer and a buyer. I like to produce what I can, but when I do purchase, I prefer options like Farmer's Markets or other local growers over the more commercial outlets like super-centers.
With this short post and these simple thoughts, I hope to inspire others to * at least* consider what I have shared. Personally, I’d rather not ruin things for the generations to come! Society may consider some things to be acceptable, but that doesn't mean that there are not better solutions. Ultimately, each of us is a steward over the things under our control, and I'd rather not ruin it for others.
Do good things come in small packages? Sure, sometimes. But seriously, other times, no package is better!
FULL STEEM AHEAD!
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Upvoted by @gardening-trail
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Read our guidelines here. Join us In the Gardening-Trail and let's discuss Gardening Related Topics
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Good for you @papa-pepper and I'm in the similar boat to try to make steemit a source of income. I know you are probably past this, but I would like to invite you to the content makers group if you're interested. You definitely qualify:
https://steemit.com/steemit/@whatageek/the-content-makers-group-join-us
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Cool, I appreciate the offer, but try to throw a lot of votes around on my own, so automatically voting for that many users might deplete my power too quickly.
I'll try to keep an eye on some of you guys though!
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Thanks @papa-pepper, please do. I see your name all the time and will keep you in as well :)
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We recycle all our packaging, we have a bin for rubbish a bin for recycling
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Strong upvote ))))
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Have you checked out @BadQuakerDotCom? Ben Stone and Ki Vick also mention various other benefits to growing your own food and producing your own goods, including having more knowledge of what you consume and giving less support to the government/corporate complex.
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Never heard of that, but I like the other reasons that you mentioned too!
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Why do we not have an electric power generation plant at every landfill?
Because govern-cement wants to see us die.
The govern-cement has regulated out of existence, one of the most needed forms of electrical power production. Burning our waste.
With furnaces similar to a rocket stove, you can burn almost everything that gets sent to the dump. And it burns extremely cleanly (because the ultra high temperatures in the after burn, burn all the pollutants.)
And, after we bury all that shit, it leaks methane gas, which is burnt off. But noooo, we can't produce a methane fired electric plant. That would just be too hard.
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I remember taking some building rubble to a landfill many years ago when I lived in the Free State (a province in South Africa).
Now the Free State has a town called Welkom, which is renowned for being very flat, few hills, no mountains etc.
Driving to the landfill site, I had never bee there before, I see a large hill and I think 'wow there is actually a hill here!'
Turns out THAT was the landfill, an enormous MOUNTAIN of trash!
As we were offloading the rubble I looked around, the amount of usable stuff people were just dumping was frightening.
Thankfully here in Maia, Portugal, the municipality has a recycling program, so everyone here separates plastic, paper and household trash into 3 separate bins.
I also hope to grow my own sometime, hopefully soon.
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Reading this makes me thankful to have a recycling station in my neighborhood. Also, I hope you meet your goal of living off of Steemi soon. I would like to do the same.
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I've got a few other projects too, but hopefully by combining them all with what steemit supplies too, maybe I can get to the point that I am able to just work from home.
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Recycling sure is nice! We drive ours to a center about half an hour away, but it's worth thevtrip!
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That's an advantage of growing your own, for sure! That's one reason I like growing crops that don't even need any processing, or that I can store in canning jars. I can leave Jerusalem artichokes, carrots, rutabagas, green onions, and greens in the ground for the winter. I can just keep storage onions in reusable net bags, potatoes in cardboard boxes, and winter squash on shelves. And I can put dry beans in jars. All of those don't even take any energy or equipment for processing for use in the winter. Then, with dehydrating and canning, I can keep food in reusable glass jars - jars that will outlast me. I do reuse plastic bags when I freeze my harvest, though. I do put some things in the freezer in canning jars, but not too much. And like you show with little Monster Truck Pepper there, fresh is best! Happy gardening in 2017!
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What a great post! I never understood the need for all the extraneous food packaging. As a kid, you went to the market and filled your little basket with produce and they packed in a paper bag. You went to the butcher and they wrapped your meat in paper. We reused bread bags, any kind of plastic container and glass jar. You burned waste once a week in the barrel.
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I liked the strategy they had in the previous village I used to live. You were paying a fee for every single bin the town had to remove from your place. This forced all the village to start controlling the amount of thrash, and it was working damned well (all were composting, buying products with less boxes, plastic films, etc.).
I would be glad to see that implemented everywhere (the entire region was behaving that way)
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At least the landfills can become parks later on. We have "Mount Trashmore" nearby. XD (I'm not making that up)
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I'm constantly amazed at the amount of packing that goes into a lot of items and how much we as consumers pay for the packaging that ends up in landfills.
I think it is great that you live a self-sufficient lifestyle, but that isn't going to be feasible for everyone. Doesn't help that my thumb might as well be black. :)
I try to avoid single serve packaging and buy in bulk. There are a lot of times that I get irritated over the lack of buying options when it comes to consumables of all types.
The price of convenience isn't just money. I love my Keurig coffee pot but would never consider buying k-cups. While emptying and filling the reusable cups is a pain, I cant' imagine adding 4 or 5 plastic k-cups to the landfill everyday.
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Most plastic package just annoys the crap out of me.
There is no reason for it to be in that much plastic.
We try to get our groceries from the farmer's markets, and lately from a local church which does cheap vegies, and that helps us keep our rubbish down.
We used to put out about two or three rubbish bags a week, now we have a bin that we share with our neighbors. If they are not home, we really only need to put it out once a month. So we have cut down a lot on the crap we are sending to the landfill.
We are trying to grow our own food a little bit, but my house is where plants go to die. So not a huge success so far. :-)
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Excellent work!!! Keep trying to grow, and I'm sure that something will work out!
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I'm good at weeds........ :-)
I can grow weeds like a pro. It's everything else that dies as soon as I plant it.
My dad gave me a plum tree. It was fine at their place. Dead withing a week of getting it home.
Next he gave me a grape vine. It's not dead yet, but not looking too happy. I think the wind here is just too much for them.
It has been very windy here this year.
I hope all is well with you and the other peppers stuck in the middle of winter. :-)
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A lot of weeds are edible, you could try those!!!!
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Ahhh... yes
Horta as the Greeks call it. My wife loves horta. Most are too bitter for me, but we do find some nice ones now and then.
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