I know - it never left, but read this.
My wife and I have been living through another one of those little collapse-of-civilization kerfuffles that seem so common today. This one involves misdirected Amazon packages, and what to do with them. Lois wrote a simply dandy story about this on her Substack, and I suggest you read it right now. Click here. Right now.
Then come back here, because I have a few additional comments.
Okay.
When I was quite a lot younger, there was something called Earth Day. Actually, it's still around, but there was a time when there was no Earth Day - the first one was in 1970.
Until then, the United States was officially a throwaway society. Over the years, the idea of caring about our trash has made considerable progress. For instance, used hypodermic needles and other medical waste no longer wash up on New Jersey beaches. Wait - that's a categorical statement. Let me rephrase: I haven't seen a used hypodermic needle wash up on a New Jersey beach in years.
Today, everybody seems to pay at least lip service to the idea of preserving the planet. What they actually do is often something else. Many companies still seem to quietly view trash as an "externality" - an economist's polite way of saying "I don't care."
Mr. Bezos and his Amazonians seem to think it's okay to leave packages on your doorstep - this is called "delivery," and they even take pictures with their phones to prove they've "delivered." Then the porch pirates come. And nobody in a position to do anything about this mess cares.
And then it turns out that misdirected packages are also just another part of the trash stream.
We are headed in the wrong direction.
See also Scavengers and Scow Trimmers; In Defense of Disgusting Alleys; Art Meets Sewage; Somotomo; The Gowanus Transforms, Again; What Does a Clean Street Look Like?
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