Monday, July 14, 2008

Garbage is Anything You Don't Want to Have to See

"Give me a lever and I shall move the world" is a quote attributed to Archimedes after discovering the mechanical advantage afforded by a stick and a rock.

My brain is always looking for levers - small things that would create big change. Here's one: Make the price of oil $500 a barrel and see how fast alternate energy takes hold. Oops, too late.

Here's another: Make it illegal to move garbage more the 5 miles. Unworkable? You bet. People stashing stuff in nooks and crannies, smuggling garbage around in their cars.

Maybe the first will take care of the second...

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Perhaps one good thing to come out of the increased costs of transport and garbage disposal will be that people mend more things? Perhaps companies could also help by making their products so that they actually have parts that people can replace when they are worn rather than requiring them to throw them away and buy a new one?

Dave Kauffman said...

Totally. I grew up in the days of the upstairs repair shop where they seemed to be able to repair anything from toasters to watches. Now that there are desktop machines that can make 3D parts, I'm hoping for a return to wanting to buy devices that can be repaired rather than thrown away.