Green Tip #21: Hoard

Psh, who ever said that you don't ever learn anything useful on TV? So I was laying around my apartment with my AC cranked up to 73 (hey, I'm a person too, don't judge me!) and I was watching a show on TV about people that hoard stuff all over their houses for years and years. And that got me thinking.

Most of you know that landfills are huge environmental nightmares to deal with. You have to worry about making sure that the lining doesn't leak and what to do with the methane gas and what to do with the rainwater runoff and about 100 other things to worry about. And that doesn't take into account the issue of the land that is being used. In fact, landfills have a saying that goes with them of NIMBY or Not In My Back Yard. Well, while people don't want their trash to be thrown away in their backyards, why not put it in your front yards. And porches. And kitchens and bathrooms and bedrooms...

I mean, it's not exactly solving the problem of what to do with all of the waste that we generate, but it'll put off the problem until we have something better to do with it. Like turning waste into energy. It's inefficient now, but give it 15 years or so. We'll have something better by then.

You probably aren't convinced yet, are you? Let me give you this bit of information. I recently made a trip to Honduras and I noticed that they have virtually no waste management system in place. They just throw their trash out the windows. I'm not exaggerating when I say the streets are lined with garbage. (I don't mean to single out Honduras, it's just the only place I've been outside the US.) But who takes more crap from the world community when it comes to their environmental record? The well maintained, organized system that we have in the US or the reckless "the world is my garbage can" ideology in Honduras? That's right, the US always takes crap for our environmental record no matter how hard we try. I say no more landfills! They've done us no good! Make your own house a mini landfill. I mean, it's your trash, it shouldn't bother you to keep it around a little longer. And besides, what better way to recycle than to save an old bandage that you might need to use later?

(As gross as it sounds, someone on one of those shows did save old bandages... blech!)