The Recyclables: Can We Listen for a Change?

The Recyclables: Can We Listen for a Change?

Too much angst for you? Me too. This is an attempt to show how silly and dangerous the 'my way or the highway' attitudes have become. The allegory takes place in a zero sort recycling bin with national left and right wing newspapers arguing over contemporary topics like healthcare, gun control and more. There are lovers triangles and hacked cars to lighten some of the heavier dialogue. The author believes we are more in agreement, at least regarding goals than we might think. If we can stop talking past each other with a bit more respect, we might accomplish something. With the world being economically entwined and getting more dangerous, we need a press core we can depend on. Can you be more open to other thoughts and different people? The Recyclables Can We Listen for a Change? By Kalma Downe AuthorHouse Copyright © 2017 Kalma Downe All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-1-5462-0847-1 Contents Introduction, vii, Saturday - Recycling, 1, Sunday - Education, 30, Monday - Discrimination, 56, Tuesday - Healthcare, 76, Wednesday - Election Results, 95, Thursday - Gun Control, 124, Friday - Conclusions, Possibilities, 143, CHAPTER 1 Saturday Recycling Aluminum pot: "Now I find myself inside a zero-sort recycling bin. I feel kind of sad being all alone after years of cooking great dishes in the house. The recycling truck just came yesterday, so except for me, this place is empty." Crash, Bang, Thud, Tinkle, Tinkle, Gong. Thud. Great – I am no longer alone! Who just came in? I see wine bottles, green beer bottles and a plastic soda bottle. Have you been here before?" Chardonnay bottle: "Huh?" Aluminum pot: "Have you been recycled before? We are in a recycling bin." Chardonnay bottle: "I don't know. This seems new and scary for me. I just held fermented grape juice for the lady in the house to get drunk." Aluminum pot: "The people who live in the house that we came from recognize that we all have value beyond what they initially used us for. By putting us into this recycling bin, they will be doing their part to not trash the planet. Things will be added all week long until the recycling truck comes on Friday to take us away. At the recycling center, we will be sorted out based on what we are made of and ultimately sent to another place to be reused for a different purpose; something new." Chardonnay bottle: "What do you mean used for different purpose? How do you know all this stuff anyway?" Aluminum pot: "Well, you are made out of glass. Glass has lots of uses besides being wine bottles. Glass is basically melted sand and has been recycled for hundreds of years. It's likely that you will be melted down again and changed into something else. Maybe you will become a window for somebody's house or another kind of bottle. Maybe you will be a wine glass, stained glass for a church, or a car window where you would get to see all sorts of fun places. Maybe you would become a lens in binoculars or a telescope – looking at birds and stars - what fun that would be. Being recycled – looking to a brighter future can be fun to think about. I understand recycling because I have been recycled before and I remember it. Being made out of aluminum means that I have many, many uses in people's lives. Once I was part of a fighter airplane. I got to be part of a dog fight and shot down an enemy plane. It was quite a thrill. I remember this because I did not have to be melted down to be used again. I was able to just be removed from the airplane and formed into the pot that I am now. The reason I'm in the recycling bin, is that the son in the house was trying to use me to make a casserole and put me in the oven where I did not belong. The oven heat melted my handle and they didn't want to use me anymore because of that. So here I am looking forward to my next role in life." Chardonnay bottle: "Getting recycled sounds very scary I'm not sure I like this." Aluminum pot: "Well, actually there's no escape from being recycled. Everybody who will be in here was once part of the planet that the people in the house call Earth. The entire planet is one giant recycling processor. Everything on the planet living or not ultimately will be recycled. This even includes mountains, rivers, oceans, including the people who live in the house that we came from. Rain was once water in a lake, stream or ocean. It evaporated into the sky. Became a cloud and rain or snow just to start the cycle all over again. Water people drink is thousands, even millions of years old. Chardonnay bottle: "You mean to say that on Friday when the recycling truck comes again we're all going to be taken to someplace where we will be processed into another useful item? Are there any alternatives? I'm getting scared." Aluminum pot: "Yes there are alternatives. The people in the house could have thrown us into the trash. In that case, we would have just been hauled off to an incinerator where we would be burned polluting the atmosphere