Being Green

There are a lot of advertisements and commercial talk these days about being green. Companies, organizations and stores would like people to know they are environmentally conscious.

Great! I support that ethic.

Even the railroads are into the mix, but they have a ways to go.

I was on a Metro North train coming out of Manhattan yesterday and while it was stopped at a station I witnessed a worker emptying the recycle bin.

These bins have three openings. One is labeled “trash”, another “bottles and cans” and the third, “newspapers.”

I watched this guy pull a plastic lined garbage can out of the trash door. It was filled with garbage; the stuff we all throw away. Next he pulled the discarded bottles and cans out of it’s compartment and dumped them in with the garbage trash. Then he opened the third door and took out the newspapers and also dumped them in with the trash.

The purpose of recycling was defeated in a single laziness by Metro North employee.

If we want a pristine environment we must personally choose not to contribute to the fouling of our nest.  No longer can the individual look only to the corporate polluter and say, there is the source of my pain. The self is the source and the self is the healer. 

We are the nature we abuse.