My Fourth of July Commitment: Save the US
By Veronica MacDonald Ditko
An Accidental Anthropologist
It’s summer and I love my iced coffee. I love it so much that something that has recently happened at Dunkin Donuts got me thinking about my commitment to making this country a better place.
All Dunkin Donuts stores I’ve been to recently, and I frequent quite a few, have served me my treat in a recyclable No. 1 plastic cup and lid. As an environmentalist at heart, I couldn’t be happier. Although a streak of guilt does cross my mind when I think of how many previous cups were not recyclable and did not make it into the recycling bin.
They don’t just disappear.
America is big and so are its landfills.
I remember being on a business trip in Germany when I had breakfast with a nice man from The Netherlands. The whole time we sat together, he scrunched his brow at me in disbelief.
“So in America, you order coffee but you don’t sit and drink it,” he said.
“No, people don’t usually have the time,” I replied.
He leaned in a little closer with a concerned look on his face. “You mean to say all these coffee cups get thrown away?”
“Yes,” I said while shrinking with guilt.
This nice man told me in The Netherlands, there isn’t space for any more landfills. So a practice like that is practically outlawed. In fact, it might just be illegal.
My Swiss aunt carefully chose what went into her trash because – get this – she got charged for how much her garbage weighed. You’d better believe her compost pile was massive. It was dug so deep I would’ve been trapped it if I fell in. And don’t think my brother didn’t try to push me in there.
Also there is no such thing as a doggie bag in Switzerland. Or at least it is very rare. My mother tells me that a common custom in the countryside is for uneaten restaurant food to become slop for pigs. I can’t say I ever heard the squeal of pigs at dining establishments, but I’m not discounting her. Maybe the pigs were just up the road.
I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve taken the few small bites left at a Jersey restaurant home in a Styrofoam container. Usually it is just to make my kids happy. Well that has to stop. Not once have they eaten the soggy pancakes or shriveled French fries again. Oh I’ve made them, but they go untouched.
It would have been better if the restaurant just threw it in the trash instead of me throwing the food and the Styrofoam into the trash. It is going to take eons for the Styrofoam to degrade. Plus it leaches not-so-good stuff into the earth.
So what’s my point? I hope others can join me on my Fourth of July summer commitment. Continue to live like an American because, well, that is life here. But please try to make a few changes that will impact the amount of trash you make. Because we might just run out of room at some point.
Recycle that iced coffee!
Forget the doggie bag!
Get the refillable container!
You might actually save some money in the end since a lot of establishments want you to bring that refillable container back again.
What are some small things you do to help the environment in the US?
Veronica MacDonald Ditko is originally from the Jersey Shore, but married and settled in northern New Jersey. Her journalism career started a decade ago after studying Psychology and Anthropology in Massachusetts. She has written for several newspapers and magazines including The Daily Hampshire Gazette, The Springfield Union News and Sunday Republican, Happi, Chemical Week, The Hawthorne Press, The Jewish Standard, Suite101.com and more.
Happy Fourth!