Page 12 - Boca ViewPointe - August '21

Page 12, Viewpointe August 2021
It’s All A Bunch Of Garbage

By William A. Gralnick years for plastic bags to decompose. That’s about the same discarded every year in the good ole USA. And the answer
time as it took the Egyptians to build the Great Pyramid. is? 450 years per diaper.
Unlike today’s kids who When you come back from Publix having shopped for the These numbers will only grow and eventually we’ll run
only have to tote plastic week, how many plastic bags do you have to toss out? out of landfill space. Other than filling up things like the
bags and containers to the Multiply that number of bags by let’s say the average, 15 Grand Canyon we must be determined and creative. Don’t
curb, we, when we were years. If you want to really go for it, how many houses use plastic bags, use reusable ones. Use cloth diapers. Break
their age, had to work out, are in your neighborhood or in your town? Now we’re the paper towel habit. Get involved socially and politically.
lift weights or do something to make us stronger. The garbage into some advanced math. Don’t be just another citizen contributing to the suicide of
we schlepped was in steel cans. I don’t know why, but unlike Nylon is used for more than stockings. It is in all kinds of us and the planet that hosts us.
today when there are plastic rolling racks for the plastic bins, things, like fishing lines. Thirty to forty years is the answer Interested in more? www.saveonenergy.com/plans; www.
we dragged the cans to the curb, often scaring the driveway for that one. Your work boots too worn to give away so you saveonenergy.com/business-energy/business-electircity-
and cement along the way. Watching the garbage men was toss’em? The soles take 65 years to decompose lasting as long rates; and finally www.saveonenergy.com/learning-center.
awe inspiring. They’d hoist that can, carry it to the back of as the life span of an African elephant. Here’s one that’s hard
the garbage eating truck, then dump and bounce. The bounce to get one’s mind around. Leather and Styrofoam cups—50 Columnist and author Bill Gralnick was born and
was the smacking of the can against the lip of the crater into years each. I remind you that’s 50 years for each one. raised in Brooklyn. His latest book, titled “The War of
which the garbage went so they weren’t giving you back the We’ll close with some goodies. Soda cans: 140 years. A the Itchy Balls and Other Tales from Brooklyn,” offers
same garbage you gave them. glass bottle? One MILLION years. And the grand slam? Baby more memories. His writings can be found at https://www.
Not surprisingly there were garbage strikes. Cans lined diapers of which it is estimated that more than 27 billion are williamgralnickauthor.com/. 
the streets in all the boroughs. The strikes were usually in hot
weather, so it wasn’t long before the stench pervaded every
nook and cranny of life. This was what usually brought a Norbert Graber, R. Ph.
solution to the strike. And that was the sum total of it. Like and Lynn Graber, R. Ph.
robots on a certain day, we did our garbage routine and were
met by robots who took it away. Yes there were incinerators,
and the citizens were becoming aware of the thick, billowing
smoke that came from them, and the oily black exhaust from
trucks, and what became known as smog. We got to thinking
about solutions to that, but the garbage not so much.
It seems suddenly, but obviously not, we had a garbage
problem. As part of the on-going diplomatic hissing match
between China and the US, China stopped taking our
garbage. Just how much could the Jersey landfills hold? In
fact, how much could the 300 plus landfills in the nation
hold? And while they were holding it, what were the contents
doing to the air we breathe and the water we drink? Now we
have a real mess on our hands.
It is very difficult to get people excited about solving the
garbage problem. What was that wonderful Jonathan Winters
movie about the funeral business? Wealthy families found
out that Forest Lawn Cemetery was out of burial space, so FREE
Winters started a burial in space business. Yes there are those Family Owned & Operated LOCAL DELIVERY
looking for a nearby black hole in space into which we can SERVING BOCA POINTE AND OUR COMMUNITY SINCE 2001 Free for prescription
dump the world’s garbage or dump onto the sun and so on. drugs only
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are 120 nations represented at the United Nations.
Where does all that stuff go? The answer for the vast 22191 Powerline Road • Boca Raton
majority of it is one word: Landfills. Livescience.com SW Corner of Palmetto & Powerline • Mon-Fri 9am to 6pm • Sat 9am to 3pm • Closed Sun
tells you that landfills are the second largest source of BocaPharmacy.com
human produced methane release into the air, methane
being a gas that traps heat twenty-five times more than
does carbon dioxide. There are 3,500 landfills in America,
a few are not too far from where you are reading this.
Remember as trash increases so does the need for more
landfills therefore more methane.
Let’s look at some specifics. Those paper towels we rip
off so routinely from their holders instead of using sponges
or rags that are washable and re-usable, they take upwards
of a month to decompose. Have a yen for fruit? That orange
peel or banana peel will be with us for about five weeks. FYI
it would take less time to binge watch every episode of Law
and Order or renew your passport than decomposition of the Scott Cohen is Here to Help!
towels or fruit waste.
Are you a cigarette smoker? Upwards of five years for Your fellow Boca Pointe Resident is available to
each filter you toss away. Here’s a good one. It takes 10-20 help with Property Insurance Claims to ensure
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