Throwaway Society No More
As a volunteer for Keep Springfield Beautiful, I appreciated Alan Bisbort alerting us to expanded bottle bill legislation ("Litter Bugs Us," Aug. 7, 2008) and will definitely write to my state rep and senator. In addition, in line with reducing litter and lowering oil prices, I hope we will consider eliminating disposable products from our lives as much as possible. With disposables, energy and resources must be (1) used to move the raw materials to the manufacturer; (2) used to produce the products; (3) used to transport the finished products to the stores—all for us to use the product once—then (4) used to transport and dispose of the used products. Could anything be more wasteful and inefficient?
Some simple ways to cut back on disposables are drying our clean hands with a cloth rather than a paper towel; refusing to patronize restaurants that use disposables even for people dining in; using cloth rather than plastic diapers except outside the home; taking reusable bags to the grocery store rather than using plastic or paper.
The statistic I've seen the past 30 years is that America, with 4 percent of the world's population, is using 25 percent of the world's energy and resources. If you are embarrassed by that statistic or are interested in reducing energy demand, cutting back on disposables is a good place to begin.
Eileen Pratt
Springfield
Olympic Rites "Militaristic"
I was mesmerized at the militaristic precision with which the opening ceremonies for the Olympic Games were conducted. It gave me pause to conjecture that such military precision could only be achieved in a totalitarian state like the People's Republic of China. It brought back memories of Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution in which 65 million people perished, an event which induced the fear to perform precisely today in the minds of the performers.
The Chinese regime is still officially communist, even though the totalitarian "ism" called communism has been responsible for the deaths of over 100 million innocent human beings during the last century. It is hard to imagine that the 1972 Munich Olympic Games would have been held there if Germany had still glorified Hitler in 1972. Yet the 2008 games are being held in China despite its continued glorification of Mao.
The president of the United States has, by his presence and his silence, extended the hand of friendship and legitimacy to the Chinese communists at the Beijing Olympic Games. I think that Americans should be outraged.
Frank M. Pelteson
Las Vegas
