How much time do most people spend thinking about trash and waste management? I have no sense of what most folks think about garbage, although I suspect that most people don't give too much thought at all to what happens to stuff once its thrown away. I often find myself saying bitchy things like "there is no AWAY, it doesn't disappear, it goes into a landfill and stays there for what is basically eternity." At some early age, I suspect around 1990, the time of the 20th anniversary of the first Earth Day, during that period of time when recycling had gone from hippie business to activist argument and then to municipal duty, I became very interested in "Environmental Issues." I had become terrified at the thought of the damage humans were doing to the planet and as a future steward it made sense to do whatever was recommended to help reduce the threat of TOTAL ENVIRONMENTAL COLLAPSE. Add a healthy dose of Catholic guilt (an ingredient in many of my less attractive attributes) and you have a 10 year old zealous Planeteer, duty-bound to protect Mother Gaia from the assaults of careless adults. Adorable
and awful.
