While reading through Chapter 13, I tried to think of a good resource dilemma that the world is facing today. As defined in the book, a resource dilemma involves a resource that is limited or finite but used as if it is unlimited and replenish-able (water, oil, coal, etc). Naturally I was able to think of many resource dilemmas involving water, but I was hoping to come up with something that was a little less common. This made me think of the movie Wall-E. I remember watching this movie for the first time and falling in love with the precious robot with the big heart. But once you get past the adorable aspects of the movie, you realize that the core issue was mankind’s tendency to waste and waste until there is no space left to deposit garbage. While space isn’t the same kind of resource as water or oil, it is still limited and abused.
A few months ago I watched a video of a girl that did a “30 Days No Waste” challenge. She literally couldn’t create waste of any kind for an entire month. She bought only fresh fruits, she created a compost bin with worms to manage her actually compost needs, she didn’t use plastic goods of any kind, and so on. At the end of the month she had one mason jar of “waste” to her name. I remember thinking while watching the video how difficult that would be if I tried it. Then I thought, why is it so difficult to imagine not wasting hundreds or possibly thousands of dollars worth of material every month? Why is it that mankind believes that we have unlimited space on this planet and that no matter how much waste we create, there will always be a place for it?
As the population continues to grow, so will the waste that we create and the space (or resource) we have for it will continue to decrease. If we don’t actively work as individuals and communities to lessen the amount of waste created, we will soon be overrun by garbage just like Wall-E, but won’t have giant spaceships to escape in. I think that recycling, reusable bags, and even composting can help tremendously if people are educated and the proper interventions are implemented.