I’m having a crappy day, so I indulged in a bag of chili-cheese fritos. I usually keep a bag on hand since they are out-of-this-word fantastic crumbled on a salad, but today, I switched gears to mood-elevating high-grade mode, and ate fritos for fritos sake. I didn’t eat the entire bag, but a sizable portion of it. I doubt the rest will be consumed in judiciously small crumbles over healthy greens since when I am having a crappy day, it tends to be nestled within a crappy week, which means there’s a good chance I will need fistfuls of fritos tomorrow, too.
The fritos came in a crinkly plastic bag printed in the perfunctory fleshy orange and red, for some reason that bag is miraculously mirrored on the inside. And soon, I will be done with that plastic. And that plastic, despite my willingness to wash it, dry it, and fold it tidily is not recyclable.
I didn’t tell you why I had a crappy day, it felt like a frito-worthy moment for sure. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that every day, every single day- maybe a several times a day, we have moments when we are compelled and provide ourselves micro-validations for consuming (MVCs?) and disposing of something that will be present for millennia (environmental micro-violations? EMVs?)
- Virtuous hygiene (cleaning is good, that mess is ugly gross-evil ∴ I can use copious Pinesol in its single-use plastic bottle and will feel pure and virtuous afterwards. )
- F* this shit, I need gummy candy.
- Goddamnit! I left my canvas bags in the car, there’s a line, and it’s rainy, I’m late for bagpipe practice.
- This tube of toothpaste will last me 3 months.
I want to say these are forgivable. They are certainly human situations. We need to start seeing the environmental impact of these small and understandable acts of litter genesis for what they are. That tube of tooth paste that served you 3 months is likely to be around at least 500 years in the best conditions- longer is more plausible. Realistically, a LOT more. In a land fill, those materials are subject to subterranean cool and anoxic conditions. If there isn’t sufficient microbial activity, moisture, and electron transfer, those tubes will be there a lot longer.
I’m not asking that you forego brushing your teeth. But, let us agree that we (I brush my teeth, too) are making the decision that oral hygiene is worth thumbing the nose at the natural world to the degree of (4*75=300) 300 tubes of plastic and associated caps in the environment/individual for the next 1000 years- 300,000 tube-years/adult? I don’t state this to shame you or me. Simply that we are each asserting the worth of our dentition in these terms.
Now, let’s talk about rocks. Most all of us have sat somewhere with a rock and set it down on end, trying and perhaps succeeding to balance it. It’s in our nature. What that act is, is an attempt to deny Nature its power. Of course it’s unlikely that your 8 year old self is thinking that, but that 8 year old self is enjoying the challenge, and may revel in their ability to deny the inevitable for a moment. Righting rocks is the human ego asserting itself against other forcings in the universe. Stonehenge, the Washington Monument and similar obelisks, the sundry pyramids, the hipster stacking rocks trailside. This very human act is simply, or grandly, or elaborately, enslavedly, saying, “I.” I am different from Nature. I can manage Nature. I am master of myself, and also of you. We see crows using sticks as tools, and many animals use language, but which other species have this I-ness to such a degree that they might right a rock, not to snuffle or forage what is beneath it, but to momentarily deny Nature its domain? None. This impulse is uniquely human. I.
And so say the toothpaste tubes, “I.” It’s not a big jump. When we make things to/that last, we assert that they are worth their space, integrated over their lifetime. I am worth the toothpaste tubes, plastic fenders and seats of 6 vehicles, grocery bags, petfood bags, vinyl siding, coated plastic ware, pill bottles and disposable health care byproducts, toys and novelties, … okay-you-get-it multiplied by their respective 1000s of year long longevities. That’s a lot of ego. Did you even write a poem that your great grandchildren will read? In the balance of digital dust and food wrappers, do your compensatory favorable impacts on this world also endure?
Perhaps we are the only species capable of such self aggrandizement. Long ago, our “I”s were small: I snarl at you because I want to use that bone to make a whistle. We now exercise a sense of entitlement which is utterly bizarre in the natural order of the world: I’m going to leave with you, the next 50 generations, with a messy heap of 300 depleted tubes of toothpaste and associated kevlar floss so that… what? Whose obituary reads: And his teeth were clean through and through, as clean as his virtuous soul. May he rest in peace while we grieve with these up-cycled kevlar dental floss charms in his memory and shoes made of toothpaste tubes.
Lol. Haha. Yeah.
But that’s what we’re doing, folks. Every single time we use some laminate-packaged teabag or get that heavier childproof medicine cap, were inadvertently saying, “I.” It’s the same as the middle finger, which is is very much a symbol of ego assertion. But, we’re flipping the bird at the planet. And if you can’t stretch your mind that far, I’ll spell it out…you’re flipping the bird at your kids.
I’m not going to stop brushing my teeth. Maybe I’ll look for a birch tree and see if chewing on the minty sticks in the morning is okay before coffee. But let’s all be more conscious of these micro-violations that we’ve so normalized. OK? Let’s try. Please.