Imagine a knock on your door. As you open the door to answer it, mounds of trash begin to fall in the doorway from outside. A terrible stench hits your nose. Gasping for fresh air, the smell is so strong you can barely breathe.
The majestic trees, lush greenery, and flowers that used to greet you each morning are now smothered in mountains of your neighbor’s rotting leftovers, countless grocery bags, water bottles, beer cans, and paper, paper, paper.
It’s literally a dump.
Toxic waste, pollution, dumps, and landfills don’t usually come to mind when you think of your home. Living in a world without recycling would make these words an accurate depiction of the place we end our days, raise our families, and take refuge.
The words many of us would like to associate with a space we love and live in are safe, relaxing, warm, comfortable, and inviting. No one wants to think of trash and toxic waste when they think of home.
Unfortunately, this description is not far off from what’s already happening in people’s homes in Houston. They live next to landfills creating an environment much like the one previously described.
Constant exposure to toxic waste and pollution, chronic illnesses and asthma, are frequently what people suffer from when living near landfills. Recycling is not solely an environmental issue, it is a public health issue as well.
Picture this landfill we have been imagining. Now, imagine decreasing it by 70 percent. What does it look like now? It’s significantly different.
Maybe the landfill you pictured went from a massive mountain to a small hill. This is how it could look if the city of Houston were to expand recycling and increase the accessibility of recycling to all residents. I mention this because 70 percent of trash is recyclable. This is how it could look. Our city should not be a dump.
As a community, we have the obligation to not only make recycling accessible for all residents in Houston but to create a better environment for Houstonians to live in. No one should have a landfill for a backyard and everyone should have access to recycling if they choose to do so.
Holly Heil is a student in the Graduate College of Social Work
Heil Holly///!!! The recycling Queen of National Socialism.
And well, what do you know … another budding Socialist from the College of Social Work. Painting us a picture of complete SocDem destruction.
What you described my dear Holly … was an Occupy WallStreet campsite strewn with Pooh bags alongside mountains of trash. People stealing the gullibles laptops.
What we need my dear Holly is to instill pride in community in these SocDem dumps who take no pride in their surroundings, thus they allow “rotting leftovers, countless grocery bags, water bottles, beer cans, and paper” to be left all about.
SocDem leaders and schools have so conditioned the people that live in these dumps that its the governments responsibility to pick up the trash, and it’s someone else’ job to do this or that as they wallow in the garbage field during an average day.
Holly, you make us look like we are living in the worst toxic dump in The World, which couldn’t be farther from the truth compared to other dumps around our planet.
If you ask me, its the public schools fault for not indoctrinating these worthless kids into picking up trash in their neighborhoods. Yes, while teachers were making the kids into good little Socialist sponges to take from society rather than contribute to it, they completely overlooked the simple and important act of picking up a candy wrapper off the ground and putting it in the trash can.
So as you imagine away your day Holly, remember that you and your people are responsible for this mess, and I don’t think you ever want it cleaned up; because if everyone is free and independent … the last thing they will need … is a Socialist like you.
***TROLL***
***DAVID*** … go back to sleep little one.
I and a lot of people I know, recycle to the greatest extent possible and it’s more than 70%, yet the City of Houston took away the glass option because their poor little contractor had to work harder. At any rate, anything we did in this country is a joke compared to what countries in Europe do, especially The Netherlands. They have community bins at the end of each block; I have seen families walk together in the evenings to deposit their recyclables; most Houstonians can’t even go their own curb. They even recycle their ice in fast-food restaurants for goodness sake!
Mayor Turner definitely should have fought harder to keep glass recycling in the cards. I’m sure any number of trash collection companies would have come begging at the door to do Houston’s recycling if collecting glass is too hard for WM.
“Recycling is not solely an environmental issue, it is a public health issue as well”. Thanks Holly for shining a light on the health costs of a broken municipal recycling system. Backyards that resemble open dumps, with heaps of food waste, and heavy metals, and fetid water collecting for West Nile or Zika-carrying mosquitos to breed in, are an enormous health hazard. Especially with asthma on the rise among children, I completely agree that Houstonians should demand sanitary landfills that are far removed from residential areas, and broad access to recycling services. We’ve got to protect our kids. Period.