Garbage, Recycling, and Burning

I talked with Sunim yesterday about these three things. I told him there is so much recyclable garbage around the temple. So much. I don’t know if he has much of an idea of the extent. I don’t, I’m sure. I’m not sure that anyone knows just how much there is lying here and there, outside as well as in various storage places.

I have a hard time talking with people. Not only is my ability to speak very limited, but when others speak with me, I often get very little or nothing. So I’ve decided to write things and at opportune times I’ll flash the note to someone. Yesterday I felt like I had a good chance to talk with Sunim about the garbage and the recycling. So I showed him my note. I’d written a note saying that I know an old man who accepts recyclables. I’m sure there were mistakes in my use of the language, but Sunmi read it later and told me she can understand.

So I asked Sunim what he thought of my idea. Thumbs down. So I told him there are TVs outside. They’re rusted to hell. He said that I can give away the TVs. We didn’t talk about all the stuff laying around because I can’t communicate those things. Talking with Sunmi last night she said she could probably determine some things that can be gotten rid of. So so much stuff. So, I’ll ask her to follow up on this. If she does, then other people will have to get involved.

I also told him about burning trash. I told him we burn plastic here. Every day. I understand that he’s said we shouldn’t burn the plastic garbage. But people here do anyway. So I asked him how we can stop this. I am not so sure I understood his answer very well. Something like, “We won’t burn it.” But that doesn’t seem to be the sort of answer I want. Anyway, Sunmi and I talked about my conversation (?!) with Sunim and she’s behind me. She said she’d talk with them about it.

I wrote a note for people in the office saying that if they’ll separate the paper from the other garbage then I’ll recycle the paper. Why oh why do we burn paper here? Or plastic? With recycling so very convenient, and a recycling pick-up spot just a couple of minutes walk from here (really, maybe less than two minutes) why pollute the air? The smoke goes up, and the wind always blows it into the garden. That’s the usual wind direction. There is one reason for burning that I can see, and agree with. That’s taking local responsibility for trash. But, ideally, it would make a person generate less garbage, so they have less to burn. It would ideally instill a sense of environmental and local ecological responsibility in a person. I see nothing of the sort here. Plastic plastic plastic. But I do suppose Americans generally are still far more egregious consumers of plastics. The stuff is hideous. It gets into the air and into the soil, then into our food. Who wants to eat and drink stuff associated with petroleum anyway?

Sunmi, I think, is behind me on all these things. And something about my recycling efforts I think generated a little discussion between a couple of the temple supporters last night. So, we’ll see what happens with some people apparently agreeing with me and supporting me.

Enough.