What is Waste?
So What?
In Nature there is no such thing as waste. No other organism on the planet, except humans, produces garbage. Everything in Nature (sticks, stones, piles of leaves, dead trees, rotting logs, dead deer, wildlife scat, etc.) can be recycled back into Nature to help nourish and sustain life. “In a sustainable society, landfills will become a place to bury waste that cannot be recycled, reused, or composted.” (Chiras) Since waste is a human invention,
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In what ways, if at all, do you think garbage can be a part of our lives without compromising the quality of life for future generations?
Consider this. Garbage is growing exponentially. This is because as human population grows exponentially, so does the production of stuff. As more people produce more stuff, they create more garbage-just like what happened during the mining, manufacturing and consumption of Earthsquares.
“Flowing through the lives of each of the six+ billion people alive on Earth today is a stream of stuff... This [is an] enormous flow of stuff-out of field, forest, ocean, and mine, through the factories and processing plants and transportation systems of the global economy, into a brief lifespan of use by human beings, and back out into the world as junk, sewage, poison, or waste...”(AtKisson)
If you’re going to work toward creating a more sustainable school, you’ll need to figure out to what extent your school’s practices should mimic what happens in Nature.
“Flowing through the lives of each of the six+ billion people alive on Earth today is a stream of stuff... This [is an] enormous flow of stuff-out of field, forest, ocean, and mine, through the factories and processing plants and transportation systems of the global economy, into a brief lifespan of use by human beings, and back out into the world as junk, sewage, poison, or waste...”(AtKisson)
If you’re going to work toward creating a more sustainable school, you’ll need to figure out to what extent your school’s practices should mimic what happens in Nature.
Chiras, Daniel (1992). Lessons From Nature: Learning to Live Sustainably on the Earth.
AtKisson, Alan (1999). Believing Cassandra.
AtKisson, Alan (1999). Believing Cassandra.