A friend of mine recently directed me to some awesome PSAs created by a non-profit called The Way to Happiness Foundation, and one of them really spoke to what I am trying to accomplish with Note to Trash and the zero waste movement:
safeguard and improve your environment
As I've outlined in my breakdown of plastics, we've been bombarding our own home for years with toxins and trash in a way that is just simply unsustainable. Part of my decision to go zero waste was based around the idea of taking some personal responsibility for the condition of our planet.
Excerpt from: The Way To Happiness, a Common Sense Guide to Better Living :
Help take care of the planet.
"The idea that one has a share in the planet and that one can and should help care for it may seem very large and, to some, quite beyond reality. But today what happens on the other side of the world, even so far away, can effect what happens in your own home.
"Recent discoveries by space probes to Venus have shown that our own world could be deteriorated to a point where it would no longer support life. And it possibly could happen in one’s own lifetime.
"Cut down too many forests, foul too many rivers and seas, mess up the atmosphere and we have had it. The surface temperature can go roasting hot, the rain can turn to sulfuric acid. All living things could die.
"One can ask, 'Even if that were true, what could I do about it?' Well, even if one were simply to frown when people do things to mess up the planet, one would be doing something about it. Even if one only had the opinion that it was just not a good thing to wreck the planet and mentioned that opinion, one would be doing something.
"Care of the planet begins in one’s own front yard. It extends through the area one travels to get to school or work. It covers such places as where one picnics or goes on vacation. The litter which messes up the terrain and water supply, the dead brush which invites fire, these are things one need not contribute to and which, in otherwise idle moments, one can do something about. Planting a tree may seem little enough but it is something.
"In some countries, old people, the unemployed do not just sit around and go to pieces: they are used to care for the gardens and parks and forests, to pick up the litter and add some beauty to the world. There is no lack of resources to take care of the planet. They are mainly ignored. One notes that the Civilian Conservation Corps in the US, organized in the 1930s to absorb the energies of unemployed officers and youth, was one of the few, if not the only project of that depressed era, that created far more wealth for the state than was expended. It reforested large areas and did other valuable things that cared for the US part of the planet. One notes that the CCC no longer exists. One can do as little as add one’s opinion that such projects are worthwhile and support opinion leaders and organizations that carry on environmental work.
"There is no lack of technology. But technology and its application cost money. Money is available when sensible economic policies, policies which do not penalize everyone, are followed. Such policies exist.
"There are many things one can do to help take care of the planet. They begin with the idea that one should. They progress with suggesting to others they should.
"Man has gotten up to the potential of destroying the planet. He must be pushed on up to the capability and actions of saving it.
"It is, after all, what we’re standing on."
I absolutely loved this piece!
We all know that, as humans, we are completely capable of destroying the beautiful planet that we have been fortunate enough to find ourselves on.
I also believe we are wholly capable of saving it.
We can all begin somewhere, so find your beginning, because none of us are going to survive alone.
- PSA: Public Service Announcement or public service ad: a message in the public interest disseminated without charge, with the objective of raising awareness, changing public attitudes and behavior towards a social issue.
- safeguard: prevent from being harmed; protect.