The Garbage Rant
(Beginning of rant.)
I just threw away about 10 pounds of rigid styrofoam packing material. I did this because...well, because it came packed around this cheap-ass laundry hamper made out of pressboard we just bought. Said pressboard of quality not likely any better than the fucking 'foam I pitched. We bought this Made-in-some-Southeast-Asian-country piece of furniture to house the cloth diapers we use on Roslyn. Yes, that's right, in an attempt to make some sort of educated decision as to which diapers would be "better" for our baby, we ended up creating this huge pile of petrol-based rubbish.
Gah! I'm so FUCKIN' PISSED about this! I reuse styrofoam packing PEANUTS all the time. As an eBay king, that shit is like squeaky gold to me! But that white, rigid 'foam that gets packed around disassembled furniture and electronics & stuff? No reuse value whatsoever. And what the FUCK am I supposed to do with it, anyway? Recycle it? Great! WHERE?!? It's not like the "sanitation engineers" pick that shit up at the curb! Maybe some utopian green-zone like Ann Arbor or Madison recycles rigid 'foam board somewhere, but I live in rural, small-town Michigan: we're lucky to recycle green GLASS, for fuck's sake. (That's especially lucky considering how much red wine I drink. But never mind.) So, what...I store this crap somewhere until who knows when, and some hazardous-waste unit comes by to pick it up?
Nope. Uh-uh. I fuckin' throw it away, same as I do with the fuckin' CAT LITTER, and the damn USED-UP BATTERIES, and the "save-the-planet" fuckin' compact fluorescent, can't-even-spell-the-damn-thing mutha-fuckin' LIGHT BULBS! I THROW ALL THAT SHIT AWAY, dammit, because I'm an American, and that means I'm one lazy fuck. I need to be FORCED to do the right thing. Recycle? Oh, sure, pick it up at my curb and I'll set it out for ya...I'm settin' trash out at the curb, so it's really no diff. But do the "right thing?" Heeeyyy, what the fuck? We won dubya-dubya-two, my friend! We don't HAVE to do the right thing, not until someone makes it a law. Build a car that's actually safe? HAH! Sell it to Tucker, my friend, because the Big Three weren't interested. What? Secondhand smoke is dangerous to my kids? Well, I'll be FUCKED if I'll quit smokin' in the car with 'em! You gotta pass a LAW, my friend!
Christ. Y'know, 75 years ago my father's family just threw their trash over the riverbank. That's right, haul it across the field and dump 'er down the 50-foot drop to the flatlands along the Cass River. I guess we're lucky to not STILL be doing that. 'Course, 75 years ago what did they throw away? Glass bottles and tin cans, mostly, 'cause there WEREN'T NO FUCKIN' PLASTIC SHIT! Gas was two bits a gallon, and we weren't making diapers and plates and furniture and fuckin' PACKING MATERIAL out of oil. So, sure, throw that fused sand and amalgam metal back to nature...who gives a shit?
I dunno. You try to do the right thing, and it fuckin' comes full circle to bite you in the ass. Buy "cloth" diapers so you're not throwing away plastic, and then you need someplace to store 'em. Buy CFL bulbs so you're not wasting (coal-fired) energy, and they contain mercury so you can't dispose of 'em. Buy a car that'll last you the 200k miles you need it to, and you're taking a job away from a fellow countryman. I've just about had it up to my TITS with trying to do the right thing. Y'know, the older I get, the more I can appreciate George Carlin's humor over the last 15 years or so. Used to be he did dick-&-fart jokes, interspersed with Catholic-baiting humor from his school days. Lately, he's been ranting about stuff, and I'm finally starting to get it. He's just gotten old enough that he's PISSED OFF about all the SHIT that you have to put up with, and he's cuttin' loose through his comedy routine. Fuh. makes me wonder what I'll be like in another 25 years.
(End of rant.)
I just threw away about 10 pounds of rigid styrofoam packing material. I did this because...well, because it came packed around this cheap-ass laundry hamper made out of pressboard we just bought. Said pressboard of quality not likely any better than the fucking 'foam I pitched. We bought this Made-in-some-Southeast-Asian-country piece of furniture to house the cloth diapers we use on Roslyn. Yes, that's right, in an attempt to make some sort of educated decision as to which diapers would be "better" for our baby, we ended up creating this huge pile of petrol-based rubbish.
Gah! I'm so FUCKIN' PISSED about this! I reuse styrofoam packing PEANUTS all the time. As an eBay king, that shit is like squeaky gold to me! But that white, rigid 'foam that gets packed around disassembled furniture and electronics & stuff? No reuse value whatsoever. And what the FUCK am I supposed to do with it, anyway? Recycle it? Great! WHERE?!? It's not like the "sanitation engineers" pick that shit up at the curb! Maybe some utopian green-zone like Ann Arbor or Madison recycles rigid 'foam board somewhere, but I live in rural, small-town Michigan: we're lucky to recycle green GLASS, for fuck's sake. (That's especially lucky considering how much red wine I drink. But never mind.) So, what...I store this crap somewhere until who knows when, and some hazardous-waste unit comes by to pick it up?
Nope. Uh-uh. I fuckin' throw it away, same as I do with the fuckin' CAT LITTER, and the damn USED-UP BATTERIES, and the "save-the-planet" fuckin' compact fluorescent, can't-even-spell-the-damn-thing mutha-fuckin' LIGHT BULBS! I THROW ALL THAT SHIT AWAY, dammit, because I'm an American, and that means I'm one lazy fuck. I need to be FORCED to do the right thing. Recycle? Oh, sure, pick it up at my curb and I'll set it out for ya...I'm settin' trash out at the curb, so it's really no diff. But do the "right thing?" Heeeyyy, what the fuck? We won dubya-dubya-two, my friend! We don't HAVE to do the right thing, not until someone makes it a law. Build a car that's actually safe? HAH! Sell it to Tucker, my friend, because the Big Three weren't interested. What? Secondhand smoke is dangerous to my kids? Well, I'll be FUCKED if I'll quit smokin' in the car with 'em! You gotta pass a LAW, my friend!
Christ. Y'know, 75 years ago my father's family just threw their trash over the riverbank. That's right, haul it across the field and dump 'er down the 50-foot drop to the flatlands along the Cass River. I guess we're lucky to not STILL be doing that. 'Course, 75 years ago what did they throw away? Glass bottles and tin cans, mostly, 'cause there WEREN'T NO FUCKIN' PLASTIC SHIT! Gas was two bits a gallon, and we weren't making diapers and plates and furniture and fuckin' PACKING MATERIAL out of oil. So, sure, throw that fused sand and amalgam metal back to nature...who gives a shit?
I dunno. You try to do the right thing, and it fuckin' comes full circle to bite you in the ass. Buy "cloth" diapers so you're not throwing away plastic, and then you need someplace to store 'em. Buy CFL bulbs so you're not wasting (coal-fired) energy, and they contain mercury so you can't dispose of 'em. Buy a car that'll last you the 200k miles you need it to, and you're taking a job away from a fellow countryman. I've just about had it up to my TITS with trying to do the right thing. Y'know, the older I get, the more I can appreciate George Carlin's humor over the last 15 years or so. Used to be he did dick-&-fart jokes, interspersed with Catholic-baiting humor from his school days. Lately, he's been ranting about stuff, and I'm finally starting to get it. He's just gotten old enough that he's PISSED OFF about all the SHIT that you have to put up with, and he's cuttin' loose through his comedy routine. Fuh. makes me wonder what I'll be like in another 25 years.
(End of rant.)
posted by Animal at 4:12 PM
4 Comments:
We'll trade you our green glass for your styrofoam, old batteries and lightbulbs (I don't know how to spell fluorescent either. Or maybe I do.) We recycle those, my friend.
But I get the point and totally agree.
Progress. Hmmm.
I hear ya. It's so frustrating. I heard on NPR the other day that the highest point in Ohio is a mountain of trash about 15 miles outside of Cincinnati.
Someone needs to find a trash-eating bacteria that can convert styrofoam and indestructible plastic into fuel for automobiles. Wouldn't that be useful?
And by the way, I don't think we recycle styrofoam here in Madtown. Pity.
I feel your pain, dude. The only place I know of that recycles styrofoam is of all places, my parents' small town in central Kansas, where they have curbside recycling and everything (there's a law!). Here I am in the supposedly liberal hippy mecca Lawrence and I have to drive to the edge of town to the Wal-Fart recycling center to recycle anything, and even, then, of course, no styrofoam allowed. Oh, and we couldn't do styrofoam in Ann Arbor, either, at least not that I know of. (Maybe the curbside service took it, but no such luck for apartment-dwellers.)
Well, I guess SOME recycling is better than NO recycling....
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