The Hidden Life of Garbage

It's all about stewardship. Are we going to be users and abusers of the Earth or show some respect to ourselves and others, especially the younger generations and the unborn. Every action we take does make a difference. How do we teach people about not doing things like pouring toxic chemicals on their grass to obtain an artificial look? How do we show people that toxic chemicals on the body go into the body right through the skin? How can we teach others that plastic is forever? We need to show by example, and by using responsible alternatives and sometimes just saying NO to buying more stuff that we don't need. No one really wants to hear it, because sometimes it brings conviction. Lots of people are so caught up in the consumer spending carousel that they go round and round with the buying of stuff and then quickly lose interest in the object. Sometimes having less is more, because you learn to appreciate what you do have, however so small.

I'm known as the "Green Girl" at work because I bring my own stainless steel water bottle and  lunch in glass food jars. I bring a bamboo plate and my own towel instead of using paper towels. They notice, too, that I turn off the lights in my exam room at lunch time. They notice, and maybe in time more people will catch on.  One pebble thrown in the water makes a ripple effect. Maybe, someday...sigh

I think anything that makes us more aware of our actions as consumers and inhabitants of the blue-green planet is good. This short documentary does that. Allowing corporations to do what they do anyway they like is asking for trouble. Look at how polluted the world has become while they try to increase profits and market share without any regard to the consequences. Look at the biological pollution that Monsanto has visited upon us all while our corrupt FDA has declared GM foods as essentially equivalent and thus GRAS. That is one example of a few thousand.

I figured out a long time ago that the more trash I had in my garbage pail, the more money was I was trowing away and the more processed food I was buying. When I started really started paying attention to buying less processed food, the level of trash I was throwing away was greatly reduced. Now, I have about one small bag of trash per week for a household of two.

Professor Walker at the 6 minute mark seems to imply that capitalism is destructive by constantly making new advances. I don't suppose he drives a horse and buggy or watches a black and white TV. All through this video are messages that capitalism is bad; interesting that it is posted on a website that generates its revenue from the sale of products, ie capitalism. Walker then suggests at the end of the video that 'social regulation' is the answer - isn't that government regulation; the same government that is being blamed for allowing capitalism to run rampant in the first place? I'm not sure we would be better served with his socialist ideas being enforced by the government.

This video was good in exposing the fallacy of people 'feeling good' by sorting their garbage into nice colorful containers for the garbage man but the entire message seemed to suggest that advances in technology and the improvement of products is bad.

I lived in South Korea last year and the recycling programs there are amazing! Each apartment block had its own recycling area, bigger blocks had permanant ones and smaller blocks had it set up in the parking lot once a week. Every household brought their stuff out and separated everything out, paper, plastics, metals, styrofoam, clothes, furniture... and each building had a food compost bin. The few things that you couldn't separate into the recyling were bagged for trash -but you had to BUY the trash bags and pay to throw it out! I threw out a 5L trash bag once every 2-3 months and consisted primarily of q-tips, dental floss and washing machine lint... so bathroom garbage. As I am a DIVACUP user bathroom garbage was minimal for me. It looked like diapers and pads made up the most of the trash on my block. So switching to a divacup does make a really big difference. We need to have to pay to throw out our trash and get to recycle for free like in Korea!  Of course those things we send in  need to be actually recycled and more effort needs to be taken to use recycled goods.  Z-day coming up March 12th weekend. Help bring awareness to the movement  by supporting your local z-day events so we can move towards a world free of capitalism, corruption and destruction of the planet. thezeitgeistmovement.com

Dr. Mercola,

Can Mercola.com help by selling vitamins/supplements in vacuum sealed bags that the consumer can then transfer to a bottle once the item arrives at their home. This would save all of the plastic supplement bottles going to the waste dump.

Thank you.

I don't think it's so much that overpopulation or that our advances in technology and science are bad, in fact I think that they are quite wonderful and have done a fair bit to help (and some hurt) our planet.  Recycling is a good start to getting people aware that there is a problem.  However, the true problem lies in not that we are failing to do enough recycling but in how we think and act about the materials in our lives.  We need to start thinking up ways to create sustainable jobs, income and resource management.  Take for example the FiT programs in Germany, the government imposed (a rather controversial) regulation that they were going to pay more money for renewable energy.  Major business players already in the industry had a fit; now Germany is a leader in the renewable energy sector.  Perhaps changing the way we think about the issues and perceive profit* is the answer.  *(Profit that considers environmental and human impacts/consequences/well-being as well as monetary gain.  If we calculate the entire costs of doing things the way we currently are doing them we would find that it would incredibly obvious that it makes financial sense to conduct business in a more sustainable matter.)

There should be a link to thezeitgeistmovement.com in here too. Freecycle and the story of stuff is amazing too.

Solutions are at the root level. By the time something is irresponsibly mass produced, it is too late. Simplifying the standard american lifestyle is a great place to begin. Whatever is truly essential gets my attention. The superfluous "stuff" is ignored. I suggest that we spend our money wisely and support what is most important.

"DITTO" to what CUNNIJ said.

I've so enjoyed everything that Dr. Mercola has shared since I found him almost 4 years ago.  However, I'm very disappointed in this post.  The link to "The Story of Stuff" is way over-the-top political.  I believe I heard they show this in schools.  If so, no wonder kids are depressed nowadays.  I remember my stepson coming home from school when he was 11 back in 1990 very depressed.  He told me that we're killing dolphins to eat tuna.  This kind of propaganda is not what kids need.  Let them deal with the three R's, and us adults deal with adult problems.

We do have a problem with too much stuff.  This all demonstrates to me that people are way out of what God had in mind for us when He created us.  Greed is behind most of this, along with gluttony--oh, you know the 7 deadly sins. :)

What I found interesting is that in the '70s, when our government wanted to get away from the "gold standard" for our monetary trading, our countries panicked because they held US dollars, which were backed with gold.  To that fear, the answer was given:  "don't worry!  we'll no longer be a producing country.  We'll be a consuming country, and we'll buy your goods."  Leaving the gold standard also meant that money could be printed almost at will.   With "unlimited" money, came "unlimited" buying.

I'm 43, so I've been around a little while. I remember as a child seeing a vast majority of cars on the road blowing out smoke in one degree or another. I also remember seeing trash everywhere. We've come a looong way from that, yet we're still an "evil" country. w/e

I remember when the cry was, "We're using too many trees!"  Someone found a "solution"--plastic!  It won't take from the trees...

Also, the "Stuff" video LIES.  We have more trees than we did a couple centuries ago.  Many wildfires were started by lightning, and could not be put out. Today, HUMANS put them out (it may take a while).

It seems the solution they want is: less humans.

Industry is presented here as the culprit. Industry produces what people want or demand, and people are enticed to want things they don't need by the advertising industry. The advertising industry would collapse if all people had enough common sense to resist their pitches. Advertising brought us our boy president, Barak Obama and his Marxist theories because people bought the pitch. The principles of Marxism were adequately disproved in the Soviet Union, and now America is trying it again. People must assume responsibility, and they must assume the consequences of poor decisions. It's called Darwinism, and it works on an individual basis and it works for companies large and small if it is allowed to function, unfettered. Government regulation, (and "help"), throws a monkey wrench into the works. We don't need more regulation; we need better quality people, and those better quality people are produced by the forces of accountability. A "mommy" in the form of big government throws the whole system off track. Many young people won't understand this, but having lived through it, I can attest that government intervention has been the direct cause of most of our internal problems. Unfortunately, having good intentions doesn't insure a good outcome.

I compost all vegetable wastes, reuse then recycle my paper, glass. Avoid purchasing processed foods in plastic containers or aluminum and steel --I no longer buy canned food preparations because of my concern for BPA. Hence, what is discarded is junk mail that has no market for recycling and plastic envelopes or bags in which bread came in, as well as animal bones and fat.

Very little waste is created. Our community collects yard waste for composting. But, trees down by hurricanes don't go to compost facilities.

As an environmental activist in a former life (before being injured), I fought the location of landfills and incinerators in central and southwest Louisiana. I gathered information, wrote letters to editors, provided  information packets to activists and together we moved towards recycling and composting of vegetable wastes and away from polluting land wastes.

Sewage sludge is a major problem. It's not just what's in the toilet, but everything businesses and consumers dump down the drain. Locally, it is dewatered and chemically treated to kill pathogens--making it more toxic, then spread on horse farms, where it will still percolate into ground and surface waters, which recharge our aquifers, as well as harm the horses.

Personally, I no longer use toxic cleaners and never Lysol, having switched to less toxic cleaning products and vinegar and water to kill bacteria.  As I've learned that some of the same chemicals that are in consumer products, are also in petrochemical pest/weed controls and fertilizers.  As we made headway in one direction, the agro-biotech-chemical industry found new ways to peddle their poisons and are contaminating our food and waters.  Activists are needed now for this one, as the media, schools, have blocked information from getting out!

BTW, Monsanto makes Roundup in Luling over by New Orleans. Its wastes are go into Miss. River --the drinking water for New Orleans and is adding to the poisons of life in the Gulf.

We need to see documentaries such as this, whether we like the politics in them or not.  It's just sad that so many people do not care about our trash problem and won't even do something simple like use cloth shopping bags.

Excellent article! The plastic bottled water is globally a huge problem. I wish people would grow up and stop buying bottled water. There are much smarter alternatives, such as a "filter in the bottle". I use the Body Glove filter bottle and it is amazing...great tasting water filtered directly inside the bottle. It's so easy to refill and you can reuse it for ever, all you have to do is swap out the filter once every 6-12 months. Plus it is non-toxic and BPA-free. Imagine how many plastic bottles per year and per person such filter bottle saves!

Does anyone have a good alternative when it comes to storing produce?  I haven't found anything that beats a plastic bag.  I suppose you could store some of the smaller items in glass, but then you would still need something to put them in from the time you pick it off the shelf until you get home.

Cloth Diapers, clothes, they can be used for a really long time but there is not much a desire to do that because landfills exist.

I also don't understand recycling glass, why aren't they cleaned with bleach or UV and then just reused right at the factories? Like the movie pointed out towards the beginning, plastic is not as recyclable as glass, and those old, thick glass bottles could last 40 uses. I am not a big fan of plastic milk bottles, they should be in glass, but no one says anything about that.

The solution to pollution really does lie with individuals. We need to be better wanters. We need to want less and be happy with less. Be willing to be satisfied with what we have already. Yes, that's terrible for the economy, but the economy is going to collapse under its own weight of unlimited growth anyway. But ask yourself: At what point will you be content? When will enough be enough?

Try this experiment. For one month, look at everything you buy with these questions in mind. 1) Do I really need it? 2) Can I do without it? 3) Do I already have something that will serve this purpose? 4) Where will this go when I'm done with it? 5) Can I use this for something else when I'm done with it? 6) Where will the packaging end up? 7) Can I use it for something else? 8) Can I make something out of what I already have to do what I think I need this thing for?

And then cancel your garbage pickup for the month and keep everything you've brought home in your own backyard. How long will it take for you own yard to look like a land fill?

Our entire social/political/economic system is based on us individuals not EVER being satisfied with what we have - not ever being content. It is based on over consumption and just like the gluttonous person who won't stop eating, it will all be crushed and die under its own weight. It must. The earth won't allow it to continue unchecked indefinitely. But, wise up, folks. Totalitarian Communism in not the answer and a global summit to address "global warming" is really not the answer. (BTW, just how many tons of  toxic chemical pollution was dumped into the atmosphere getting all those world leaders to a summit they could easily have had via video conferencing?)

Take personal responsibility for your consumption and be satisfied with less. I'm not saying NO to all technology. Obviously I own a computer. But it's an old one. It still works and I'm not replacing it  until it's totally dead. I can live with what I have now.

I'm as "green" as the next person, perhaps even more so. But I'm really getting tired of "capitalism" being blamed for all the world's woes and the mate to that mantra, false environmentalism.

First of all, what's called capitalism is not really capitalism at all, but corporatism. Capitalism is me starting out with 4 hens and a rooster that I traded my neighbor for vegetables and seeds, and then nurturing those 5 chickens into 20, that can then provide food, and fertilizer for the vegetables. Capitalism is a person taking real property (land/livestock) and realizing an increase of that initial capital through responsible skillful husbandry. It is self-limiting through 1) my ability to care for my crops/livestock 2) the space in which I have to work 3) decreases through weather downturns, blights, or other forces of nature. Also through consumption of what is stored for use in the sabbatical year. (Wise husbandry lets the land rest every 7 years - and BTW,  the time it takes to completely deplete soil nutrients if none are returned to it.)

Corporatism, on the other hand, although looking a lot like capitalism, has one serious difference and fatal flaw. It is based on unlimited growth and fiat currency. Nothing can grow without limits - nothing. Unlimited growth always results in self-destruction, as the professor pointed out.

False environmentalism is quick to trash what it calls capitalism because the majority of environmental groups have been hi-jacked by communists. They reveal themselves in phrases like: "social regulation". In reality, the driving forces behind these groups care not one wit about the environment, only about dominance and control - same as corporations. (Didn't see that one coming, did ya'?) In fact, international evil polluting corporations actually fund organizations like Green Peace. Do you really think you're doing the planet a favor by switching to mercury laden CFL's? No. You're doing GE a huge favor, though.

To be continued:

It is already practised in the eastern hemisphere the plastic pyrolysis way to treat waste plastics. This process reverses the plastic back to its original form, that is oil (diesel grade). refer to www.in-eco.com. I believe this is the more realistic way than recycling. Complementing the municipal waste segregation system, plastic bags are no longer a problem because they will not be in the landfill any longer! The organic waste within the plastic trash bags will be composted too!

GASIFICATION instead of incineration/oxidation could ELIMINATE LANDFILLS!...The technology is here...

Lorilett wrote; "How do you feel about abortion?  this seems to be the most "appropriate" solution to many people who blame man for all of earth's woes and cry, "over-population!".

How do YOU feel about abortion?  Do you know that some of the so-called inert ingredients in the weedkiller, Roundup, and its active ingredient, glyphosate, increase the risk of spontaneous abortions in farming communities where genetically modified crops are grown.  The epidemiological study was in Ontario, Canada.   However, the same is occurring in Argentina where GE soy is intensively farmed and Roundup/Glyphosate is intensively used.  Nanny goats aborted their fetuses, as did their human counterparts.

How many people who are trying to create families have had their fetuses aborted because of agrochemicals?  We may never know.  

This new form of biotech-chemical agriculture is poisoning surface waters, which recharge aquifers. It is the aquifers from where bottled water is tapped all over the world.  Do you have a water purifier that has reverse osmosis with an activated carbon back.  It is needed to reduce both the toxic metals in our water as well as the VOC's in pest controls (including weeds) and other solvents.  It is some of the solvents which induce spontaneous abortions.  

But why stop with drinking and cooking waters?  The skin is the largest organ in the body and can be penetrated by organic solvents in our tapped water.  With all this herbicide spraying, we will need whole house water purification systems not only for our bathing water, but also for swimming pools.  Imagine the costs!  But imagine what will happen if we just sit at our computers and do nothing about it!!!!!!

There is no problem with lawns, as long as toxic fertilizer and toxic pest controls are not used to make the lawn perfect.

Instead of hazardous waste recycled to manufacture fertilizer, as is done in the USA, we use grass clippings, which decompose and fertilize the soil and the lawn.  We are not concerned about weeds. We just keep them controlled and short with minimal blooming and hence, no reseeding.

Our frontyard lawn is green. The green comes from both weeds and grass.  Watering is for the trees, if we have not had one good rainfall each week.  It is not necessarily for the lawn.  But, most people do not believe as we.  

Men generally put more toxic petrochemical pest controls and toxic fertilizers on their lawn than is healthy for the soil, for the health of their children and themselves.  They create toxic golf course appearances.  Golf courses are as toxic as hazardous waste sites because the chemicals used to make them green were legally hazardous wastes in another life, elements of heavy metals are added to make the grass grow.  Additionally, pest controls banned for health reasons are exempted for turf.  That means that they can be used on parks, golf courses, school yards, and such.  It does not make sense, but helps the toxic agriculture industry.  

The runoff from petrochem treated lawns goes down storm drains and either directly into waterways or into sewage treatment plants and concentrate in the sewage sludge making it more toxic.

Just google Agenda 21 people, this is already happening. Agenda 21, or the website is here www.un.org/.../index.shtml

Here is another website. www.un.org/.../res_agenda21_00.shtml

What about global warming? True or false..

I have to agree with some of the other posts here.  I admire Dr. Mercola tremendously but I think this is a little out of his area of expertise.  The Story of Stuff has some SERiOUS flaws in it.   Look up "story of stuff critique" on youtube to find a four part video that does a pretty good job of unveiling some of Annie Leonard's misrepresentations although it too has some flaws.

Having said that, my philosophy is "Never fault a man for his actions if his intentions are good."

So I see this post as an attempt to make the world a better place and it has therefore not diminished my respect for Dr. Mercola whatsoever.  I teach my kids that to try and fail is always better than not trying at all.  But because Dr. Mercola has so many detractors out there, just waiting for him to make mistakes, I'd suggest next time he ensures his researchers dig much more deeply before going public with something that isn't in his area of expertise.

Thanks for trying anyway Dr. Mercola!!!!

There's only one place in my town that accepts glass for recycling, and it's very out of the way for everyone.  But I made the effort as it's hard, when you've lived in places where recycling is picked up at your curb and expected of you, to just throw a bottle in the trash.

I recently found out about this local glass recycling program.  The glass is dumped in a Special part of the landfill, where they roll over it to smash it all into smaller pieces.

Over consumption is certainly the problem at the core, but I think we should also have real recycling available.  Should this be a government program?  Should we encourage businesses of this kind to come about privately?