I’ve been observing the world around me for 66years and hope that I have learned a little something about it and the way that it works. For instance, I now know that the weather always comes from the west and that there is enough proof that the suns radiation can cause radiation burns and that there isn’t an unlimited supply of fresh water, even in the country where I lived all of my life. Oh yes, and that the country will become city with in a few decades no matter how far away from it you move.
When I was a kid growing up in, “the country,” the driveways and all of the side roads were gravel. Ya just scraped the bulk off, gunked it down and hosed it off into the gravel, it helped to keep down the dust you know. Pop, being an old school mechanic, taught us to clean anything that we were servicing until it was spotlessly cleaned in the gasoline bucket before it was reassembled. Of course when the gas bucket got dirty it also held down the dust in the drive along with the oil and anti-freeze changes.
Hand water pumps were a common sight all around town in the parks and on private property. A little joint pumping effort from you and a buddy yielded a clear sweet tasting drink to cool you off on a hot July afternoon, and it was free, can you believe it.
Anyway, the point is, that we have virtually destroyed the fresh water supply across much of the country in about a half-century, because of indiscriminant dumping. So if your lucky enough to live in an area where you still have a stream, pond, lake or other fresh water ya might want to think about taking better care of it, if not for your self, then for your grandchildren.
The answer?? I don’t know! So far in this discussion I haven’t seen any answers that seem adequate. Our county and most of the surrounding counties only have a collection once a year that is open for a couple of hours and will only take oil and a few other things. Not much of an incentive for the citizenry to conserve or recycle is it. I think our local government (us, our elected representatives) should be taking a serious look at providing convenient sites and procedures to dispose of used chemicals any day of the week any time of the year. How did that line go, “Build it and they will come!”
The generic term “Properly dispose” sounds great but it’s a political way of dumping the problem right back in your lap without and answer to the problem. That’s the same thing I here from the EPA or other authorities and it doesn’t answer the question of how! That is exactly what generated this thread in the first place two pages ago. How do you properly dispose of the waste when there isn’t a dump station any where around your town or county?
Gotta go get my “big old wife off to work,” goo’day!
Denny Graham
Sandwich, IL
