It’s 2026, soon it’ll be 2027, and the majority of people, if not everyone in modern society, regardless of gender, political affiliation, ethnicity, tax bracket, profession, etc., continues to throw stuff out willy-nilly without much thought or care. A lot of it are things the earth simply cannot ingest and recycle, from plastics to all manners of electronics. Then the stuff the earth or we can recycle, whether it’s paper products or food waste, ends up in plastic bags and dumped into landfills (creating methane I believe. I also don’t know the exact global percentage of how much recyclable stuff actually gets recycled, and not dumped into a trash bag where it will end up in a landfill).
The only innocent ones among us are babies and the severely intellectually disabled who don’t know any better. There are also the few hundreds of remaining indigenous people left in the world living in the Amazon rainforest or somewhere on the Sentinel islands that live a natural life. That’s exactly how we should be living, but it’s too late to go back. However, those indigenous people are excluded as they are not part of this “modern”, “advanced”, “civilized” society. They have no landfills, cities, roads, plastics, etc.
This issue has been bugging me since I don’t know, maybe my 30s back in the 2000s. But especially so over the past year, specifically all throughout 2026. For now, instead of making a video about it, I just want to put this out, and maybe I’ll add to it later, or make a video later on it, or not.
I know there are a ton of issues in the world, and each person has to deal with their own shit, and humans as a whole are the worst species on the planet (just google “wikipedia human impact on the environment” because I don’t want to go or link there again for the umpteenth time as what’s become of us and what we’ve done to the planet is aggravating enough as it is to think about as a 55 year old who has complete and total awareness about all of humanity’s activities (okay well maybe 90%, but close enough!). I’m glad I’m not god, I would’ve thrown myself into the sun or put a comet through my omniscient, omnipotent skull centuries ago after seeing what my wonderful creations did to the home I gifted them with only to realize I can’t die so my only thing would be to cause all kinds of natural disasters to occur or just leave and go to some other universe and start over, but I digress).
We simply cannot keep manufacturing, buying, and throwing out all of the (unrecyclable) crap that we do as if it’s no big deal. It has to end. It must.
And I’m not talking about plastic straws. I’m talking about the plastic wrappers that the plastic take-out forks and knives are in. The cups at every fast food restaurant lined with plastic, and their respective plastic tops. All the plastic bags at every supermarket or for all the various types of snacks one can buy. Plastic dog waste bags. Plastic drinking bottles. And it’s not just plastic! Like I mentioned above, food gets dumped into trash bags and ends up in landfills. Lawn cuttings and leaves that should naturally and organically litter the ground and decay and that provide organic material for things to eat or ground cover to hide are now bagged up and thrown out. Baby diapers. Coffee filters and grounds. Toys (not all of which are plastic). Dolls. Puzzles. Electronics. Books. Every single little thing you can possibly imagine from inside our homes to every supermarket, auto shop, big box home repair store, retail store, factory, you-name-it, if we or the earth cannot recycle it, it ends up in a landfill. And that’s just not the answer anymore.
New York city is turning one of the biggest landfills in the world into a park. Do you know what that means? One, that they have to find another place for the next landfill, which in turn will get turned into a park eventually too. Two, we’ll have layers of trash in the earth to mark our place in history and for future archeologists to dig up. Three, and more importantly, is the burden put on future generations to deal with it. Because those parks could collapse, toxic shit could leak out, and who knows what’ll happen decades from now.
We have to figure out a better way, even if it means banning certain things. Replace plastic dog poo bags with a biodegradable alternative, and maybe dump turn them into fertilizer or something (just the notion of putting dog waste in landfills or whatever is just insane to me, the same with cat litter). No more plastic beverage containers, maybe some kind of biodegradable cardboard with wax so they don’t get soggy. Or glass (well, no, but the plastic has to go). Cloth diapers only. And on and on down the list we can go. Toys, electronics, all of it. No more disposing of lawn cuttings and fallen leaves. Just leave them be. Again, I don’t have all the answers, but these are real problems.
I’m no tree hugging environmentalist. I know the earth and the universe does not give a single fuck about us and either does god because there isn’t one (that’s the de facto, unequivocal, objective truth). It’s up to us to be more responsible and respectful of this planet, despite the nihilistic nature of nature and life in the universe.
The only thing I can think of is strict regulation. I have no idea how other countries handle it, but the Wild West attitude here in the United States where you can do whatever you want, while I am all for freedom, this particular aspect has to be regulated strongly.
And I know the capitalists in society won’t want anything to do with this and we’ll never see stronger regulations because plastic is cheap. That’s all there is to it. Well, to that I say, too bad, suck it up, and swallow it down!
Maybe this mean we start banning things so they can’t even be manufactured. Ban all the plastic utensils. Figure out a way so people can’t just throw whatever they want into the trash. Ban plastic trash bags, too. Again, it’s not just plastic (coffee filters & grounds, apparel, books, etc.). I hate to think in extremes, but at this point, we as a society just can’t keep producing the amount of crap we do for convenience or entertainment purposes.
Maybe when the trash truck comes, they scan things, or they only take certain things. Again, I don’t know what the answers are, but something has to be done.
The earth is not and should not be a dumping ground.
Sigh.
Well this was a waste of time. Felt good. Cathartic as usual. Got the truth out. Once again I’m right as always. But nothing’s going to change. Cheap, manufacture, buy/consume, throw out, fill the landfill, out of sight out of mind, rinse and repeat until there’s nowhere else left to put the trash.
Good job! [slow clap, back slaps all around]
[Last updated November 2nd, 2026]