It's Earth Day

I've always had a thing about wasting stuff, and I'm not quite sure where it comes from. I just have a hard time throwing things out. I'm not a hoarder, per se, but I would much rather see an item that is not useful anymore to be reused in some way or recycled, than end up in a landfill. As a kid growing up in New Hampshire, my parents saved money by taking their garbage to the dump on Saturdays instead of paying for the curb side pick up. We generally had 1-2 bags of garbage, and also a bag of things to recycle. The recycle bins were the first thing you saw when we drove into the landfill. I always had fun throwing the glass into the bin and hearing it crash inside. One day that we went, I found this little wooden school desk. It was perfectly in tact and we took it home. My dad sanded it down, and varnished it and we used it (until it was sadly stolen from my brother's garage many years later). I guess someone else out there saw value in it as well. And to think it would still be rotting at the dump had I not found it.

Sadly I think a lot of people in this world, and especially in this country, just have this attitude that the resources on this earth are never ending. Unfortunately, this just isn't the case, and we ALL need to do our best to reduce our global footprint. Many years ago I started to read a lot about the environment, and I started to make some changes in my lifestyle. One if which I started to recycle. Sadly, the town we lived in at the time did not offer a curb side recycling program, so I searched for places that I could bring my recycling to. In my search to be more environmentally friendly, I found out that eating meat is really bad on the environment. From the animal waste that gets piled up and contaminates our water, to all the water and other resources it uses just to get to my plate, I thought that giving up meat would be a really easy way to conserve.

Being conservative with our resources takes some effort, and there is always a balance with effort and convenience. I know that I have been more lax lately because I have fallen out of the habit of being more conscience of it, aka I've been lazy. However, with Earth Day today, and a new reason to care about the future of this planet (my son), I have decided to be more aware of my habits and start to change my habits to be more earth friendly. I also encourage everyone out there to look at their own habits and find new ways to conserve as well. After all we only have this planet to live on, we might as well care for it. Please Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle.