The Loss of The Lungs of our Planet

Now why is it that when your in the bath the telephone always rings?

Yesterday as I was getting out of the bath a friend called. As he knows that I often don't watch that much television, he called to let me know that there was a news program that I was likely to be interested in. I was and I will talk of these in a moment. But first I need to tell you that I made a mistake yesterday. After talking on the phone I started to upload a video to You Tube, but I must have clicked on the wrong file, as it was not until today that I realised the I had tried to upload one already there. Therefore, the video was not showing on my posting until I corrected this. So I am sorry to the folks who tried to see this but could not.

However, because of this I also discovered that my footage of the Flooding at Blackhall Mill, the village down the hill from me, is my most watched film. Firstly though I want to thank all the folks that responded to this film, unfortunately as I get about fifty emails per day, I can not respond to everyone personally, but it is really heart warming to know that so many people care. My emotions are mixed though as I would rather that it had been a film of something pleasant that was the most watched, and not one of a rather stressful incident. I am just glad that there was no loss of life and while a hundred homes had to be evacuated, I am acutely aware of it could have been far worse.

Anyway, last night there was a program about the way that some of the rubbish that is supposed to be going towards recycling is actually being shipped overseas and ending up in landfill in India of all places. That's five thousand miles away. While I disliked the tone of the program it was rather shocking that instead of the materials we carefully sort so help reduce the use of natural resources and to stop wasting energy is just ending up in land fill.

Further, the program showed that even what is supposed to sorted waste is contaminated as in the example of bales paper that was full of plastic. Making them not viable for recycling. The problem is not the local authorities but the private companies that are paid by local government to sort the waste. I am just glad that I take all my recycling to the collection point myself and do not put it into the mixed box that my council provides. The main reason I do this as I often collect other peoples rubbish that they throw away in the wood. It is clear that we really do need to do more as a society. The problem seem to me that it is an attitude that far to many people are not prepared to take responsibility for their own rubbish and think that its someone else's responsibility. Yet here in Britain the cost of disposing of rubbish is growing, it costs municipal authorities one hundred and fifty pound per ton to send rubbish to land fill. If we actually had to pay that cost personally, I bet that there would be a real change in our attitudes to waste.

The other program was about the continuing and increasing destruction of the rainforest. In Brazil the rate of destruction is faster and greater than ever before. While there are many reasons for this, but it is the rate of the destruction that is really alarming. There will come a point when we will rue what we are doing to our planets ecosystems. I know that the majority of people do care about what is happening, but feel powerless to stop the destruction. Yet we do have some power it is the power of the Dollar, Pound or Euro in our pockets. If we don't buy products made from exotic hard woods then the people who are illegally logging the rainforest will no longer make money from this destruction. It really is that simple.

Equally when buying foods if we avoid buying agricultural products that come from Brazil, there will be a rapid end to the destruction of the lungs of our planet.