TRASH TALK

Getting rid of our trash is no simple task. Taking out the trash is simple enough—grab the plastic sack, walk the fifty feet to the provided can or dumpster. From there it is out of the house and out of mind. But that’s not the end of it. The garbage truck comes at a very early hour (when garbage trucks are supposed to come), and makes a whole lot of noise (which garbage trucks are supposed to do), by ingesting our garbage sacks in the bowels of the truck along with all the neighbors’ sacks, and away it goes to some landfill or recycling station. That’s still not the end of it.

Dealing with trash is big business. It is trash to cash. “Some 55% of American waste still ends up in landfills, and operators in this $52 billion industry have long been required to collect and dispose of the landfill by-product, methane gas. Well, waste not, want not. In 2003, some began turning it into energy. There are 469 landfill-to-gas projects in the US; delivering 330 million cubic meters of gas daily—enough to power 1.6 million homes. How wonderfully trashy.” (Fast Company Magazine, June 2009).

What great green thoughts that our dog food cans, paper towels and plates, pizza boxes, potato peelings, onion skins, pampers, various plastic wrappers, yogurt cups, egg cartons, paper cups, plastic milk jugs, newspapers, beer cans, ketchup bottles, and other unspeakable things are mixed with earth and are making methane gas to light our homes and cook our hot dogs. That’s trash talk. James says, “If any of you is lacking in wisdom, ask God, who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly, and it will be given you.”

“See, I am sending you out like sheep into the midst of wolves; so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.” Jesus