Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, August 29, 1993 TAG: 9308270005
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: STEVE KARK
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
But as bad as that sounds, we might take some consolation in knowing that we're not the only ones dealing with this problem. Landfills, it seems, are filling up everywhere.
Remember the ocean-going trash barge? The one they dragged up and down the seven seas looking for a place that would accept it? And all the time they spent dragging it from one place to another, the trash on board just got smellier and deadlier.
That situation went on long enough for the barge to become a symbol of our country's own shameful inability to deal with the problem.
It wasn't really our problem, though, was it? It was the sort of thing you'd expect from a big city, like drive-by shootings and crowded subways. Not something we'd need to worry about tucked away out here in an isolated county in rural Virginia.
Well, the chickens have come home to roost. We need to think long and hard about something we might have taken for granted in the past. Just what can we do about our trash problem?
Too much time has been spent looking for someone else to blame. During last month's hearing at Giles High School, an auditorium full of angry people wanted to pin the blame on the county supervisors.
And, in turn, several of the supervisors said the blame needs to be put on the folks in Richmond and Washington: They're the ones passing laws that place tighter restrictions on trash disposal.
Finger-pointing doesn't get us anywhere. Besides, disposing of the trash is only the last part of the problem. We ought to be thinking about the trash itself instead. Why, for instance, do we produce so much of it?
It's time we clean up our act. Way past time, actually. We shouldn't be having this problem in the first place. If we'd thought more about it a lot sooner, we might not need to look around for someone to blame now.
Anyway, who's really to blame? It's not the county supervisors, and it's certainly not the folks in Richmond or Washington. You can bet your last dollar that they didn't go looking for this kind of trouble.
Let's be honest with ourselves for a change. You know as well as I do that we're all to blame for this one, each and every one of us, plain and simple. There's no use standing around wringing our hands over it now.
Of course, we didn't do it on purpose. Even a wild animal has the good sense not to soil its own nest. We just didn't think about it too much. We pack our trash in a garbage can or haul it to a Dumpster, it's gone. Out of sight, out of mind. Only now it's come back to haunt us.
We caused the problem. What can we do to solve it? For starters, we need to get ourselves out of the habit of thinking of trash as something disposable.
This isn't a new idea. Recycling's been around for years. But too many of us are a little slow on the uptake. We don't want to admit that things have gotten this bad.
My wife instigated recycling in our household. She has coaxed me, resisting the whole way, into seeing its essential value. Nonetheless, I whined miserably about having to rinse out the glass jars and separate them from the rest of the trash. This system, I discovered, applied to cans and plastic bottles as well. I was used to throwing them all away together. No muss, no fuss.
Old habits are hard to break. That's really a big part of the problem. It's also why the county's plan to involve school children in recycling is such a good idea. They haven't had time to develop our bad habits.
We need to recognize and accept the fault in ourselves. Only then can we begin to solve this problem. Of course, it won't be easy. But it's really the first step.
Besides, if I can do it, anyone can.
\ AUTHOR Steve Kark is an instructor at Virginia Tech and a correspondent for the Roanoke Times & World-News. He writes from his home in scenic Rye Hollow, in a remote part of Giles County south of Pearisburg.
by CNB