So, I bought a new CD. I tried to get it open but couldn't with all the layers. I mean plastic and then tape and little sticky tabs…the tape is like government tape. It says, “Open here.” Is that sarcasm? You buy batteries and they are in there with layers and layers of cardboard and then scissors....you need scissors to get into the package to get the scissors. What do you do when you buy them for the first time? You can’t get them open. Light bulbs, glass, breakable…come in that thin thin cardboard ...what are they thinking?
-Ellen DeGeneres


The Disposable Brain

Plastic, Styrofoam, Cardboard, Paper, Glass!

We package with it, protect with it, store with it, eat with it, carry with it, wrap with it and dump it and trash it everywhere.

Take out food
Fast food
Coffee and coffee cups, stir straws, sugar packs, and trays
Shopping bags, paper and plastic
Water bottles
Soda and beverage cans, Styrofoam cups, plastic rings for 6-packs
Cardboard boxes, cardboard packaging, ads, coupons, guarantees, directions
Extra packaging around items
Packing “peanuts” and Styrofoam, wrap, paper and fillers
Advertising paper and cardboard, brochures, flyers, stick-ons
Promotional stuff like pens, cups, hats, buttons, small toys

We really don’t even think about it. You are at a coffee shop. You order your coffee and a pastry. They put the pastry into a paper, cardboard or plastic wrapper. Then all that goes into a paper bag, which ten seconds later you dump into the trash. You use a paper napkin or five. You grab some extra sugar and cream packs you’ll later throw out. Then you drink your coffee, and on your way out the door toss the coffee cup, napkins, stir stick, extra creamers and receipt into the trash. Forget one billion a year. In this case, think hundreds of billions. And where does all that stuff go?
Fresh Kills Landfill on Staten Island, for instance, receives 44 million pounds of New York City garbage every single day...What is in these (landfill) mountains?... newspapers and packaging take up about half the space...yard waste, construction wood, organic waste, especially food... and an unbelievable conglomeration of odds and ends made up of plastic. ~Al Gore Earth in the Balance

These landfills mountains, sometimes the highest land point around, generally do not decompose. They do generate a lot of methane gas, a major contributor to global warming, as well as potential for explosions and fires.
You drive through a fast food line. You order two items. They are each wrapped, put into a container; those are put into a bag, with napkins, stir stick or straws, extra condiments and accompanied by a plastic glass of drink. That’s twelve items of trash. Imagine the waste produced from one popular fast food chain in one day across the planet?

Imagine all the coffee cups thrown away in just one day across the planet?

Imagine all the plastic shopping bags used in just one day across the planet?

Imagine all the beverage cans and bottles used in just one day across the planet?

We grew up in a brief golden age where we did not have to think about it. Resources seemed to be limitless, we did not see the effect on the planet. In general people thrived, and life was good. We grew up thinking, “What else can we discover and use?” not “How can we value and conserve?” We grew up in an increasingly throw-away society, and that seemed to be a good thing. Convenient and fast, things that could go with us in the car or on a trip or into the office. Disposable meant less work. Disposable meant more time for us. It meant we were prosperous and didn’t “have” to think about the things our parents and grandparents did. We never thought about where “disposables” go. Someone else dealt with that.

We buy the newest and latest anything, and then discard the old without a thought. Look around your neighborhood on trash day. Furniture, computers, food, plants, entertainment, and their boxes and wrappings fill up the dumpsters or streets. Advertising convinces us we always need more, so we became consumers and disposers. Endlessly we consume and dispose. Need a new lamp, desk, lawn mower, phone or camera? Just toss the old and go get a new one. Hey, business loves it. The more you believe in a disposable buy-a-new-one lifestyle, the more sales the giant warehouses make, and the worse the quality of items will be, because you’ll want them cheaper and faster and more choices; so you won’t ask for or want to pay for quality. Cheap and fast means problems. Lead paint on the toys, toxic pet food, furniture made of composites which give off dangerous fumes. We also get items that don’t last a year, and so they fill up our dumpsters, and they leave us dissatisfied, because they are poorly made and everyone can have the same thing we have in a minute.

So what if we think about what we purchase? What if we reduce the advertisements and pressures to buy, buy, buy that come in the mail and on the media? How about if we pay attention to how much useless packaging comes with a purchase, where things come from, how they were produced, their quality, and where they go after we are done with them? Wouldn’t we take BACK control of our purchases, and our lives? What if we start asking for easy recycling options from the city, composting classes, biodegradable products, clear labels, higher quality, and environmentally sound and safe production?

You are powerful!
What you do makes a difference.Visualize your choices and actions times one billion.

You have become used to thinking with a disposable-oriented brain. You have repeated disposable behavior millions of times throughout your life. Your brain has been trained not to pay attention. Open your eyes so you begin to look around and notice what you do, and the effect it has. You can and you will begin to develop a new and exciting way of seeing the world. One that puts YOU back in charge.

Begin to see our resources as precious and limited. When you begin to see, it will become second nature to carry your own bags to the store, bring your thermal cup to grab a cup of coffee, find homes for things you no longer want, shop around instead of going to the mindless warehouses where you fill your cart with junk. You'll find it easy to print on both sides of computer paper, compost your greens and leaves, and behave in a way that conserves and recycles, rather than disposes.

The Green Brain thinks, "Cherish and conserve!"
Train Your Brain Green!

-excerpt from toolstolife.com