[Sunsilver]

Amen, Dogma!

 

[selzer]

You're free to do as you wish.I was speaking for myself. It feels right to me personally to make earth friendly choices when I can. Just my "teaspoons worth".

I read some inspirational thing, probably untrue, but whatever: A man saw a boy was walking along a beach and stooping and picking up starfish and throwing them back into the ocean. He watched the boy for a while and then approached him. He asked the boy why he was throwing them back into the ocean. The boy told him that they would die on the beach. So the man said, there are thousands of them, you cannot save them all, you cannot even make a difference. The boy said, "it makes a difference to this one" and he threw the starfish back into the ocean.

I think to be whole, we have to have a mission or a purpose, a meaning for living, perhaps something that lives on after we are gone. People often say to pay it forward, or to give back. Artists and musicians make something beautiful that will outlive them, but it doesn't have to be something that makes us famous. I think maybe it is more private and personal. Or not. Some folks may find something like this in gardening. I am thinking a flower garden. It is not to impress the neighbors, or to live after them, or to provide healthy vegetables, but to bring them satisfaction of working with their hands and building something that gives them peace and even joy. Others find helping others in some way. There was an old movie, I Remember Momma, in it the old, rich, grouchy uncle dies. He has a young wife, and the family thinks she is after the old guy's money. They congregate at the home, and find that there is no money left. But his diary, and Momma reads the last page to her sisters. It is a series of figures with names and after each is "walks now. " The whole diary is a testament of how he spent his life paying for children to have surgeries to their legs or feet so that they could walk. It was a great movie, really. Doing what you see as your part in caring for the earth may not make a difference to the earth in the end, but it may make a difference in your life. That's kool.

 

[xthine]

Switching out from green to the purple bags. Will see how it holds up. [emoji90]

 

[dogma13]

I believe doing a small kindness can have a domino effect. I remember a commercial on TV years ago,possibly put out by the Morman church? I can't remember the details but there was a bad tempered grumpy person that witnessed someone stopping to help someone for a moment. He in turn refrained yelling impatiently as he normally did and offered a kind word.Each person along the way did one tiny thing to make another's day better.

 

[Sunsilver]

Have seen this in my own life. I was having coffee with a woman I'd met online, and in walked a man who had just finished 6 months in the rehab where she worked, to overcome his drug and alcohol addiction. She invited him to join us, and paid for his coffee.

When he found out I needed help to get my house ready for sale, he volunteered to work for nothing. I accepted his offer, after talking privately with the woman who knew him, and making sure she thought he could be trusted. I found he was quite handy at what he did, so eventually I was paying him $15 an hour.

We became friends, and he insisted on accompanying me to all my chemo appointments, to support me. (My brother was supposed to do this, but he hurt his back really badly, and wasn't supposed to drive.)

There were a few blips along the way, but now, 4 years on, he's engaged to be married to a really nice woman, has got his welding certificate back, and has a unionized job that pays really well!

He says if I hadn't helped him, he no doubt would have slipped back into addiction and might have overdosed and died.

He still drinks, but between his job and living in a stable relationship with his fiancée, he's staying reasonably sober!

 

[LuvShepherds]

I believe doing a small kindness can have a domino effect. I remember a commercial on TV years ago,possibly put out by the Morman church? I can't remember the details but there was a bad tempered grumpy person that witnessed someone stopping to help someone for a moment. He in turn refrained yelling impatiently as he normally did and offered a kind word.Each person along the way did one tiny thing to make another's day better.

I agree. Nothing replaces kindness. I spend a lot of my free time doing things for other people. I run a small charity that gives items to NICU babies at a hospital that serves a modest income community, to cancer patients at a wellness center and to the homeless. I do it because it makes me happy to share my talents. I’ve trained a few dogs for people who couldn’t do it themselves, which is somewhat more frustrating and less rewarding because you can train the dog but not fix the person. I try to use as few resources as I can comfortably manage because I want to, not because I’ve been scared into it. We each have to do what makes the most sense for us. When I worked two-three jobs and was raising a family, I did less because I had less time. Do I think everyone should be kind to others? Absolutely. But it’s also not my place to tell people what they should be doing and I get frustrated with people who feel it’s their job to do so.

 

[dogma13]

But it’s also not my place to tell people what they should be doing and I get frustrated with people who feel it’s their job to do so.

Heck no!Demanding that someone be kind or conscientious would be the complete opposite.

 

[LuvShepherds]

Heck no!Demanding that someone be kind or conscientious would be the complete opposite.

I wasn’t referring to you or your post. Sorry if it sounded that way. I sensed some “shoulds” in this thread in other posts. I was actually talking about environmental comments. Things like water bottles and water sources, and others. As an example people who don’t have good drinking water from their taps or wells may not have any other options than buying water from other sources. It’s not our place as a forum to criticize someone else for their choices. Or poop disposal. Different communities have different laws. I once saw a young woman picking up dog poop using a newspaper. It didn’t go so well. We are basically required to carry plastic bags with us. I’ve heard some parks and hiking areas actually have plastic poop bag dispensers with bags available for free.

 

[dogma13]

I wasn’t referring to you or your post. Sorry if it sounded that way. I sensed some “shoulds” in this thread in other posts. I was actually talking about environmental comments. Things like water bottles and water sources, and others. As an example people who don’t have good drinking water from their taps or wells may not have any other options than buying water from other sources. It’s not our place as a forum to criticize someone else for their choices. Or poop disposal. Different communities have different laws. I once saw a young woman picking up dog poop using a newspaper. It didn’t go so well. We are basically required to carry plastic bags with us. I’ve heard some parks and hiking areas actually have plastic poop bag dispensers with bags available for free.

I didn't take it that way at all Many of us think to ourselves so and so should do this or that and sometimes it comes spilling out. It does rub people the wrong way.

 

[Sunsilver]

I guess the takeaway to this thread is a) okay the current bags aren't perfect, but there aren't a lot of alternatives that work for bagging poop. b) some municipalities MUST be making it work. As I've said, in Ontario our pet waste goes in the green bin, and gets composted along with kitchen waste. Both go in the same type of (plastic) bag, which is designed specifically for this one purpose. (I checked the box, and the bag we use are plastic.)

More work obviously needs to be done to make things better. And it was interesting to hear the different solutions people have for dealing with the poop at home, when they don't have to bag it and take it with them!

And the world is certainly not going to end if we fail to get rid of the poop in an environmentally friendly manner...

When I was told I had to transport the poop from the kennel to the dump, I put it in heavy weight black garbage bags and placed the bags inside a kiddie pool in the back of my SUV, in case they had leaks. Then, I drove the mile to the dump with all the windows down, and had to pay cash to dispose of it. It went in the dumpster with all the other non-recyclable garbage.

Things have certainly improved a lot since then!

 

[David Winners]

Life is full of compromises. I think the best we can do is the best we can do at the time.

We all decide what is important to us at any given time. The best we can do is to treat others like we wish to be treated, to make decisions based on moral and ethical principles and to leave this world a better place than we found it.

Of course the definitions of those terms are completely objective, and sometimes you have to place the needs of yourself and your family over others.