- Last month, you read about my coast-to-coast bicycle
trip across America during the summer of 2010: "How we trashed an
entire continent in 150 years." I also wrote about our cities growing
out of control and beyond human dignity. Despite that story, I wrote about
the infinite beauty across this amazing North American continent. The
magic of Yosemite, High Sierra, Death Valley, Grand Canyon, Painted Desert,
Petrified Forest, Mississippi River and so much more! Everyone living
in North America enjoys many blessings on multiple levels.
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- Hundreds of readers responded with e-mails lamenting
America's current conditions on many fronts. But the trash situation upset
them! Some felt hopeless while others scowled with anger. Still others
said, "What can we do?"
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- Answer: a great deal at the personal, local and state
levels! You can band together in groups to create solutions and implement
them. You may organize high schools, Rotary Clubs, Lions and other civic
organizations to make change for the better. From all your letters, you
might enjoy this short paragraph to give you some perspective:
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- "Imagine a country which employs the principles
of personal responsibility and accountability for future generations. Everything
you do-counts! If you do nothing, that counts likewise. When you read
sobering information, do you want to give up? Or, do you want to engage
like Thomas Jefferson, Betsy Ross, Ben Franklin, George and Martha Washington,
John and Abigail Adams, Lincoln, Susan B. Anthony, Dr. Martin Luther King,
Oprah, Barbara Jordan, John Muir and other Americans. You represent the
Jefferson's, Oprah's and Dr. King's of the 21st century. Consider
it your honor and privilege to become a part of the solutions. Engage
the present to change the future! Become an agent of the change you wish
to see." FW
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- Last Friday in Golden, Colorado, I watched a painful
video program showing the amount of plastic and other trash generated by
this country every month. Americans toss, flip, discard and disregard
eight out of ten plastic, aluminum and glass water, soda, liquor and beer
containers-into lakes, streams, rivers, oceans, parking lots, play grounds,
streets, dumps and wilderness-without so much as a blink of concern for
their actions.
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- Oprah Winfrey produced a show that explored what happened
to all the plastic: she revealed the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch,"
a 3.0 million ton floating island of plastic debris 60 to 90 feet deep,
greater than the size of Texas-1,000 miles off San Francisco. She noted
that humans around the planet add another 2.5 million plastic containers
every hour 24/7 to that GPGP! Additionally, oceanographers reported that
that 46,000 pieces of plastic float on EVERY square mile of our oceans
around the planet. (Google: The Great Pacific Garbage Patch for movies
of it and figures. It exists on every ocean to varying and growing degrees.)
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- The GPGP kills millions of sea birds, turtles, dolphins,
whales, sharks and other marine life in numerous ways-strangulation, in-gestation,
stopped-up-bowels and worse. Millions of plastic bags stuff up the intestines
of whales and dolphins-killing countless numbers. It disrupts eco-systems
like reefs, the ocean bottom and more. As a Scuba diver for 47 years,
I witnessed our pristine oceans transform into a junkyard of plastic,
metal, tire and other human flotsam. I have stood knee deep in plastic
trash on beaches around the world on six continents.
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- Here in the USA, we discard and toss enough glass, cans
and plastic to fill up two Empire State Buildings every two weeks. Consequently,
the U.S. 'carbon footprint' cost to Mother Earth and devouring of natural
resources-plus more production of containers explodes beyond comprehension.
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- Painfully, a scant 27 percent of Americans recycle cans,
glass and plastics! But in places like the great State of Michigan, where
they passed a 10 cent deposit/return law 20 years ago, you won't see a
single container discarded anywhere! Why? No matter who tosses their
containers, an army of kids snatches up every 10 cent container within
moments!
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- Unfortunately, in my State of Colorado, the pretend-environmentalist
Peter Coors of Coors Beer fame, spent millions to stop any container recycling
laws from passing in 1974 and 1988. Why? More profit for him and more
litter for us. When I personally approached him, he said, "Well,
it's not that bad because it's only an eight percent waste stream."
To that I replied, "Yeah, well, Pete, you always tell viewers at
Christmas to not ruin the High Country by not cutting a tree, but then,
as we all walk around the Back Country wilderness, your cans, bottles and
Coors beer boxes trash the environment."
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- Coors responded, "Well, we need more education and
responsible citizens." I replied, "Wouldn't a 10 cent deposit
law work much easier with an economic incentive like Michigan's? Why don't
you take your $13 million annual salary and hire trash-truck crews to scour
the roads, lakes, streams and parking lots to pick up the billions of containers
that ultimately end up on the landyou'll put folks to work and do a good
deed!"
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- No reply on that one!
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- You probably faced the same men of financial power in
your state and that's why only seven states enjoy .05 cent deposit/return
laws. Their only motivator: money, power, greed! Coors exemplifies a
classic example of denial and complicity in long term negative impact.
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- However, men like Coors can be overcome with persistent
stubbornness that grows stubbornly persistent. In a sermon last Sunday,
my minister, Dr. Roger Teel, preached a sermon, "Deliberate Living"
where he inspired our congregation by implementing, "B-H-A-G's! Big,
Hairy, Audacious, Goals! You may access the sermon at <http://www.MileHiChurch.org>www.MileHiChurch.org at
10 a.m., Mountain Time, next Sunday, November 14, 2010. You're in for
a BIG intellectual and spiritual treat! Dr. Teel proves humorous, compelling
and dramatically instructive!
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- Our country desperately needs to end plastic bags flooding
out of super markets and mercantile stores. We need to mandate cotton reusable
bags: several of mine maintain their worth after 29 years of use! We
need 10 cent deposit/return laws on ALL of our containers: we cannot continue
as the most wasteful nation in the world as we gloat of our humanitarianism
in the same breath. Yes, you will face Peter Coors "Robber Barons"
in your own state, but, hey, if Michigan succeeded, so can you.
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- Form groups, web sites and clubs to pass a 10 cent deposit/return
law in your state. Move at the state level to stop the use of plastic
bags. Advance toward recycling everything that can be recycled. It's
up to you, your kids and your community. Be a leader or follower, but
get involved! Additionally, how can BHAG's become a part of every aspect
of your personal and planetary life that longs for transformation. Inspired?
You decide!
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- Need help? Right here: www.togethergreen.org ; www.earth911.com ; http://www.c2p2online.com/
Canadian Pollution Prevention ; www.recycle.com ; www.wastewatch.com ;
Care 2http://www.care2.com/channels/ecoinfo/recycling_waste
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- If you need further information for sites in your area:
World Environmental Organization--
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- http://www.world.org/weo/recycling
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- Again, it's up to you to create your own BIG, HAIRY,
AUDACIOUS GOALS! And so it is!
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- ______________
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- Frosty Wooldridge has bicycled across six continents
- from the Arctic to the South Pole - as well as six times across the USA,
coast to coast and border to border. In 2005, he bicycled from the Arctic
Circle, Norway to Athens, Greece. He presents "The Coming Population
Crisis in America: and what you can do about it" to civic clubs, church
groups, high schools and colleges. He works to bring about sensible world
population balance at www.frostywooldridge.com .
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