#306 Waste

A word is whatever we make of it. I recently met a woman at a Chamber of Commerce event. She worked for Best Buy, apparently in a sales capacity, I wasn’t sure. Her card didn’t say salesperson or sales representative or even account executive. It said “customer experience manager.” So I’m led to believe her position is managing the customers experience of Best Buy. Sounds like a feng shui artist, saleperson, facilitator, wedding planner and Dr. Phil all rolled into one. Talk about creating unrealistic expectations...
What is waste? Is it something we refuse to reuse? Is it all about intention? Is that what changes the inflection from reFUSE to REFuse. I remember the old Mariners t-shirts “Refuse to Lose.” When they lost we all started pronouncing it REFuse to lose. So at what point in the cycle of use does something become waste? The act of throwing it away? Take a piece of gum. I chew it and chew it till the flavor goes away even if I didn’t leave it on the bedpost over night. If my mom tells me to spit it out but I swallow it in spite is it now food? Or is it just waste in the upper tube waiting for a ride. What if I do spit it out as I’m driving along in my car? Is it now litter? It’s not inorganic but it’s not easily biodegradable either. If we come down on the litter side then there are a lot of sunflower seed eater husk-spitters out there that deserve some fines. If we come down on the organic okay not litter side we’re sliding down a slippery slope of discarded banana skins. How about if there’s another animal out there that can eat it or benefit from it? I’ve seen robins use Easter grass in their nests. Easter grass is more indestructible than a Twinkie. An apple core left on the ground is arguably useful to a raccoon or a possum. Squirrels will eat human nuts if they’re left out. If I pour a bunch of inedible-to-humans seed in my bird feeder and the birds toss all the bad stuff on the ground is it now littering? Animals die in the forest all the time and get slowly consumed by the recycling resources of nature. But when my dog dies I can’t drag him into the forest. I have to pay the pound to dispose of him. They have a very lush forest out back. Do crematoriums have emission standards? There are some mighty big smokestacks on the top of teriyaki places. They seem to filter out everything but the smelled of charbroiled chicken. Oil burning plants have scrubbers on their stacks to prevent toxic particulates from getting into the breath-o-sphere. Uncle Ralphy loved his beer. He died of an over-toxified liver. Hate to be downwind of the crematorium when he flared up to heaven. He was also into making pottery. And his final wishes were to use his ashes like they did with Mt St Helens—make them into a ceramic glaze and coat a series of beer mugs. Here’s to Uncle Ralph, the ultimate recycler, wasted to the last.
America, ya gotta love it.