eBook
Available on Compatible NOOK devices, the free NOOK App and in My Digital Library.
Related collections and offers
Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781546208488 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | AuthorHouse |
| Publication date: | 10/20/2017 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 172 |
| File size: | 744 KB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
Saturday Recycling
Aluminum pot: "Now I find myself inside a zero-sort recycling bin. I feel kind of sad being all alone after years of cooking great dishes in the house. The recycling truck just came yesterday, so except for me, this place is empty."
Crash, Bang, Thud, Tinkle, Tinkle, Gong. Thud.
Great – I am no longer alone! Who just came in? I see wine bottles, green beer bottles and a plastic soda bottle. Have you been here before?"
Chardonnay bottle: "Huh?"
Aluminum pot: "Have you been recycled before? We are in a recycling bin."
Chardonnay bottle: "I don't know. This seems new and scary for me. I just held fermented grape juice for the lady in the house to get drunk."
Aluminum pot: "The people who live in the house that we came from recognize that we all have value beyond what they initially used us for. By putting us into this recycling bin, they will be doing their part to not trash the planet. Things will be added all week long until the recycling truck comes on Friday to take us away. At the recycling center, we will be sorted out based on what we are made of and ultimately sent to another place to be reused for a different purpose; something new."
Chardonnay bottle: "What do you mean used for different purpose? How do you know all this stuff anyway?"
Aluminum pot: "Well, you are made out of glass. Glass has lots of uses besides being wine bottles. Glass is basically melted sand and has been recycled for hundreds of years. It's likely that you will be melted down again and changed into something else. Maybe you will become a window for somebody's house or another kind of bottle. Maybe you will be a wine glass, stained glass for a church, or a car window where you would get to see all sorts of fun places. Maybe you would become a lens in binoculars or a telescope – looking at birds and stars - what fun that would be. Being recycled – looking to a brighter future can be fun to think about.
I understand recycling because I have been recycled before and I remember it. Being made out of aluminum means that I have many, many uses in people's lives. Once I was part of a fighter airplane. I got to be part of a dog fight and shot down an enemy plane. It was quite a thrill. I remember this because I did not have to be melted down to be used again. I was able to just be removed from the airplane and formed into the pot that I am now. The reason I'm in the recycling bin, is that the son in the house was trying to use me to make a casserole and put me in the oven where I did not belong. The oven heat melted my handle and they didn't want to use me anymore because of that. So here I am looking forward to my next role in life."
Chardonnay bottle: "Getting recycled sounds very scary I'm not sure I like this."
Aluminum pot: "Well, actually there's no escape from being recycled. Everybody who will be in here was once part of the planet that the people in the house call Earth. The entire planet is one giant recycling processor. Everything on the planet living or not ultimately will be recycled. This even includes mountains, rivers, oceans, including the people who live in the house that we came from. Rain was once water in a lake, stream or ocean. It evaporated into the sky. Became a cloud and rain or snow just to start the cycle all over again. Water people drink is thousands, even millions of years old.
Chardonnay bottle: "You mean to say that on Friday when the recycling truck comes again we're all going to be taken to someplace where we will be processed into another useful item? Are there any alternatives? I'm getting scared."
Aluminum pot: "Yes there are alternatives. The people in the house could have thrown us into the trash. In that case, we would have just been hauled off to an incinerator where we would be burned polluting the atmosphere, or to a landfill and buried, or put on a barge and dumped at sea. In some places, the burning items in an incinerator are used to make electricity – a good use and still a form of recycling changing items into energy. If this was a farm or ranch, some of us might be used to make compost and help plants grow. In the landfill, things like food scraps, dirty diapers, newspapers and the like, will start to rot and make a lot of methane which must be burned or risk an explosion - not good for the planet or the people. Speaking of food scraps, I just saw something that said the humans throw away 40% of the food they buy. That typically goes to landfills where they decompose and create methane. The methane could have other beneficial uses.
If we got put on a garbage barge, hauled out to sea and dumped in the ocean, the planet itself decides our fate except for plastic. The planet can't figure out what to do with the plastic. Plastic doesn't rot or break down. In either of those cases it isn't really good for the planet itself. The humans on the planet create a lot of trash on their own. Landfills become overflowing and there are things like us that could be reused for better purposes rather than just making a big pile on the planet. If were dumped into the ocean, we could end up polluting the seas and even killing some of the wildlife that lives there. So, you see, being in the recycling bin is the best solution for everybody concerned.
The whole story of recycling and how important it is came to light in the late 1980's with the infamous Islip garbage barge. The town of Islip on Long Island, New York had a problem – its garbage dump was getting too full, so they loaded 3,000 tons of garbage on a barge thinking it would be easy to find another place that would accept it but no one wanted it. The Islip garbage got wide and initially comical attention. Ultimately, the tugboat dragged the barge over 6,000 miles trying to find a place that would take the trash. They went as far as Mexico with no takers. It finally ended up back in New York with Brooklyn taking the trash and burning it.
The Islip garbage barge incident drew attention to overflowing dumps everywhere and the need to recycle was highlighted. Good things can come from things that look bad at first. There is a global organization called Greenpeace that grew as a result of the Islip barge incident. Greenpeace does a lot more than encourage recycling by people. Greenpeace went after large companies, manufacturing and oil companies to point out the messes they were making not to mention the military which has a very bad record of leaving behind very toxic waste that was poorly discarded. Big companies don't like to be 'corrected' so things got tense at times."
Thunk, Thud, Clink, Tink
Aluminum pot: "What's this? Let's see, we have the Hawk Herald, a national newspaper written by and for people with extreme right wing, 'conservative views' (Whatever that means) The Dove Digest, also a national newspaper written by and for people with extreme left wing, 'liberal views' (Whatever that means) and the Driveway Nail, a driveway throw-away local newspaper that actually has unbiased and clearly written articles by people who have actual journalistic capabilities.
What's this? We also have our first plastic soda bottle – very interesting as plastic is generally bad for the planet. Like glass, aluminum and other things that can be reused, but also break down, plastic is reused as different forms of plastic – like fleece, but plastic does not easily break down and creates a huge problem. Research is starting to show that some chemicals used to make plastic may be a cause for Autism – a large and growing problem for humans. This should be a lively discussion.
Hey, National papers, it seems recycling and the general condition of the environment is the main topic for today – right?"
Hawk Herald: "Yes, recycling, burdensome regulations on businesses and the environment is the main topic for today. Regarding global warming, let me set you straight – smokestack companies are not the issue. Farting cows and volcanoes make more methane than trash from people. Liberals want to blame us for making such a mess.
There you liberals go again, distorting the story. People aren't changing the climate – it happens all by itself. Big industry isn't the issue either. It is folly to think you can save the planet."
Dove Digest: "I hope you get recycled into toilet paper! That would be fitting for you. My point is, if you'd bother to listen, is the humans are trying not to add to the problem - and you don't even seem to think there is a problem in the first place.
Have you been to Peoria Illinois and smelled some of the lake and river water there? It stinks. Do you think that happened all by itself or did it have help? Paper mills in Maine have dumped so much bad stuff in rivers there that people are warned not to eat fish caught there. California has some of the strictest environmental laws in the nation – likely because it is the filthiest state."
Plastic soda bottle: "I've been listening to you guys talk and I see the advantage of being recycled especially for me. I know that plastic is a unique creation by the humans on the planet. Everything else in here, the glass, the aluminum, newspapers, wastepaper, and the like, ultimately came from the planet itself in one form or another, more or less intact and can be reused or return to the planet with less negative impact than me. Plastic is a unique invention as part of the petroleum industry and once created remains as plastic and will not easily rot or otherwise change on its own. There are at least two HUGE plastic garbage patches in the Pacific Ocean. One is between California and Hawaii, the other is southeast from Japan. No one knows for certain how big they are, but they have been there for years and they aren't going anywhere soon.
Interestingly, if all plastic was recycled, we could probably stop making more plastic– the planet certainly has enough plastic – possibly too much. But halting the production of new plastic would likely anger the oil companies. As long as there are profits, it is okay to destroy the planet.
Wood products like paper can ultimately break down and return to the soil. Aluminum and steel can oxidize – rust, get melted down and reused. Glass can be reused over and over like plastic, but in the case of glass there is no damage to the planet or things that live on and in it."
Chardonnay bottle: "Well, I am still scared. Did I hear someone say humans get recycled too?"
Driveway Nail: "Yes, this planet recycles everything; mountains become plains, forests become deserts and humans get recycled too. The sad thing is humans seem to think the day of recycling will ever come for them. That's why they have time to hate, discriminate and have wars. Some humans believe in a sort of recycling – they call it reincarnation. Like the aluminum pot, some feel their spirit has been here before and while their bodies will be gone, their spirit can live on in a new body. Or so they believe.
Hey, Aluminum pot, you have been in the house longer than any of us. Tell us about the humans."
Aluminum pot: "Ah yes, the humans. Let's see. There is the man, husband and father. He has worked hard and is smart, but lately has been having a hard time keeping a good job. He is getting older and works in an industry dominated by younger people who prefer to work with people closer in age to themselves. He keeps trying though.
The mom, wife and mother is beautiful and never seems to age. She too is smart but has managed to get higher positions and titles than her husband but in smaller companies. She gets drunk every night on wine and is having an affair with her boss.
The son is very smart, even brilliant, gets high on pot every night. Nice kid though. I guess you could call him liberal in a conservative kind of way. He thinks people should be allowed to live their lives as they see fit as long as they don't try to impart their values on others or hurt anyone or anything. Even his best friend was born with a handicap – he has no head."
Driveway Nail: "No head?? That is impossible. We need brains to make our hearts and lungs and other stuff work. And we need eyes and ears and a mouth to eat, drink and talk with."
Aluminum Pot: "Well, when this best friend was still in his mother's womb, testing showed he was developing without a head or brain. There is a new DNA procedure called 'crispr' where part of the DNA is removed from a fetus and fixed. So, DNA experts created DNA that would let him develop a brain, only it grew at the base of his spine – just the other end of a 'normal' brain."
Aluminum Pot: "Yes, and not such a bad place given all the protection from big soft butt tissue. Talk about left brain right brain ... Now he is the same age as the kid in the house and doing just fine. After birth, they put false teeth at the top of his esophagus so he can eat and drink. He just can't sing in the rain or he will drown.
I'd better get back to telling about the people in the house.
The man and woman have frequent parties for friends and people they work with but it seems mostly an excuse to get drunk. She talks with her friends and family complaining about her husband behind his back when she should be talking with him.
Their son is very smart and has a great sense of humor. He wants to go to medical school and become a doctor who researches remedies for awful diseases.
Hawk Herald: "Maybe he will find a vaccine for stupidity. Then there will be no more liberals."
Dove Digest: "Yes, I hear what you guys are saying. As you know, I am the national liberal newspaper that the people in the house have subscribed to. Like the plastic soda bottle I know that I can be recycled into a lot of other useful things – including, unfortunately, into a Hawk Harold. YIKES!"
The thing about plastic is it's almost always harmful to the planet. While plastic can be recycled into many useful things like computer parts, smart phones, park benches, small bridges, parts of cars, the list goes on and on. Chemical components used to harden plastics that line things like beer cans are now suspected to potentially have a link with autism. A popular reuse for plastics is the creation of fleece clothing. The problem with fleece is that when you wash it, microscopic pieces of plastic come out in the wash and are not captured by the filtration systems. This microscopic plastic ultimately find its way into waterways. What happens next is small fish eat the plastic and in turn the small fish get ingested by larger fish. The plastic in their digestive systems is ultimately harmful to the fish. If the fish in question is a food source for humans, they unwittingly consume the plastic themselves."
Green beer bottle: "Do people who have consumed too much plastic become candidates for president?"
Driveway Nail: "That might explain it.
Ms. Dove, you complain about possibly being recycled into The Hawk Herald. Here is something interesting; if you research, say, the last 25-30 years, you will see that your political views and those of the Hawk have traded places! Check it out."
Dove Digest: "The sad thing about plastic is that has become so pervasive. It's everywhere. While there are natural materials that could be used in place of plastic like packaging, the truth is in the modern world there's no escape from plastic at all. Components in computers, cars, airplanes, packaging for food items are everywhere. Ironically, plastic is even used to make medicine bottles! There is literally no escape from plastic unless you go completely off grid and even then I'm not sure you can get away from plastic. I know that new plastics have the recycling symbol on them but when recycled they still retain the chemical properties that ultimately are not that great for the planet."
Hawk Herald: "You bleeding heart liberal newspaper! You think you can save the planet. You are always reporting that the planet is getting warmer to the point where all life may change. As the conservatives, evangelistic, national newspaper of Biblical and actual facts, my writers do not believe in global warming or that recycling makes much of a difference in the whole conversation of recycling. Regardless of anything bad that may or may not be happening to the planet, industry has had little or nothing to do with it at all. The Bible teaches that God made the planet roughly 6,000 years ago and his son Jesus Christ will save the world before anything bad happens."
Dove Digest: "You ignorant right-wing rag! You don't think that global warming is real or that the humans have had anything to do with the fact that actual record-keeping shows that the planet is getting warmer. Haven't you noticed how much stronger storms and floods are getting? Moreover, there is actual and dependable scientific research that clearly demonstrates human and industrial activities have indeed contributed to the warming of our home spaceship. It can be shown that the increased warming coincided with the Industrial Revolution – so don't tell me industry and people have no part in global warming. This is indisputable at this point. It is a true fact that the ice caps at the north and south poles are melting and the oceans are rising and the balance of fresh and salt water is changing. The ratio of salt and fresh water is important to the flow of ocean currents and life there. You had better wake up and smell the coffee – we need to clean up the planet and there is no more time for debate."
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "The Recyclables"
by .
Copyright © 2017 Kalma Downe.
Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Introduction, vii,
Saturday - Recycling, 1,
Sunday - Education, 30,
Monday - Discrimination, 56,
Tuesday - Healthcare, 76,
Wednesday - Election Results, 95,
Thursday - Gun Control, 124,
Friday - Conclusions, Possibilities, 143,