A consumer driven society revolves around packaging, which in turn revolves around marketing, which in turn revolves around lack of knowledge. All of this revolving ends up as waste. The United States is one of the world’s great disposable societies, thereby making it one of the world’s great producers of garbage. Or waste. Your choice.

We currently dump or throw away or discard or dispose of 254 million tons of waste each year, a figure that rises annually.  Substantially.  For instance, in 2000, America created almost 232 million tons of waste. This 2000 figure translated into waste generation of 4.51 pounds, per person, per day.

In fact, America produces so much waste that it’s been exported to China, of all places. Contracts made during the Bush administration allowed for the U.S. to export scrap metal and paper waste products to their friendly neighborhood investor. The only problem is that the recycling market crashed in October 2008, just weeks before the Bush folks left office, leaving China with worthless contracts based on American consumerism. Repeated attempts by China to renegotiate those contracts remain an effort in futility. So ships full of containers that are full of recyclables sit in limbo. Trash stacks up.

Results of the great American swindle continue to appear in the most unlikely places, long after the beneficiaries slithered out of office.

Perhaps the premier waste site on the planet, unseen by most, and unknown by many, is in a little out of the way place in the Pacific Ocean. Except it’s not so little. By most accounts, garbage island - as it’s come to be known - is twice the size of Texas.

Weak winds and currents combine to create the North Pacific Gyre, a place where trash naturally collects. Specifically, this trash island is an international convention of plastics, a byproduct of the oil industry. Within this gyre, plastics break down by the sun’s rays into minute particles and begin entering the food chain.

Results from studies made within this gyre indicate that plastic particles outnumber naturally occurring zooplankton by a rate of 6:1. Yes, for every pound of plankton in the area there are 6 pounds of plastic particles. While studies continue to be conducted in determining the effect of hormone disruption on marine life, no one can deny current evidence in the form of dead marine life infested with pieces of plastic. The finger of guilt is pointed at mankind, specifically at those who profit from carbon-based energy.

There are many powerful lobbying groups in Washington.  Among these is the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), a group that thrives on the disposable packaging industry.  A visit to their website is quite enlightening, as well as disturbing.  There’s no need to go in details about this organization other than to say they believe the Clean Air Act will cost jobs and hurt the nation’s economy.  There’s no indication that they’ve been following news events for the last year and a half regarding the nation’s economy and job losses.  So much for lobbying.

Speaking of Texas, in Kerrville, education and garbage now exist side by side. The new high school was built just a stone’s throw from the city’s monstrous landfill that now towers over the surrounding countryside, giving a whole new meaning to the phrase higher education. The school, northwest of the landfill, enjoys - on most days - aromatic offerings in the form of landfill gases, thanks in no small part to its close proximity and the region’s prevailing southeasterly winds, a fact obviously overlooked by city leaders, developers, property owners, and let’s throwin the county’s taxpayers as well.

Those prevailing winds, one might add, have been around for hundreds and hundreds, and hundreds, of years. You can’t fix stupid. Nor can you prevent back room deals, even in back woods towns. On a lighter note, there’s a new fresh meat market just up the street from the high school, situated within that same aromatic brown cloud. No doubt there’s a recent high school graduate eager to display skills acquired at the nearby higher education center.

Take a walk into your nearest big box retailer, just for an observation test. Don’t go to buy, just study. Costco, Home Depot, Lowe’s, Sam’s, any one you like. Look for plastic packaging. Although much of this type of packaging carries the recycle symbol somewhere on it, it’s there mostly for window dressing. This rush to create all things plastic is not limited to the nearest big box store. It’s at your mom-and-pop hardware store, it’s at your local grocery store, it’s everywhere and it’s pervasive in America’s throw-away society. Seemingly, the oil industry is going to make every penny they can before their product disappears.

The sad story of national waste is a long one, an unfolding and never-ending tragedy. Don’t for a minute think that your neighborhood centralized garbage collection system doesn’t wield a big stick. Waste-management companies love America’s disposable disposition. To recycle means to sort, separate and relocate garbage into separate recycling bins or areas. The pickup garbage concept is much easier, less labor intensive, and far more profitable.

There is no chance for salvaging any waste once it enters these smelly trucks. They instantly crush and compact the trash where it is either delivered to the nearest landfill or taken to a waste incinerator where it is burned, causing the release of carcinogenic agents into the air.

One need look no further than their nearest monitor to see the effects of mankind on his planet.  A quick search of garbage videos should convince even the staunchest of naysayers regarding the blight upon the land and the water.