“Environmental protection” has become a real hot topic in the last few years. It’s hard for me to believe that anyone could NOT be an environmentalist since I’ve never met anyone who wanted to drink unclean water or breathe polluted air. However, some of the people involved in these issues become very radical and restrictive in their attitudes toward other people and it is easy to see that they have an “agenda” far beyond what most ordinary good people want. Some radical environmentalists promote their cause by turning it into a type of religion. It is an “animals have more rights than people, people are a blight upon the earth, and trees have feelings” type of religious belief system. Because this negates a belief in God or a higher purpose in life for people, I cannot support that type of religious environmentalism.

     While at the fair this year, I stopped at a booth that was supporting recycling. I firmly believe in “recycling”, so I tried to engage the people in a conversation about what was going to be created out of the recycled bottles, cans, and other material. After all, isn’t that what the very word “recycle” means? The people at the booth became indignant at my questions since it was obvious that their efforts were only to collect the stuff and then warehouse it. We do not need huge buildings full of junk with no purpose or landfills full of reusable material. We need to re-manufacture these products into consumer goods and complete the recycling process. The next time you talk to someone from The Valley Community for Recycling Solutions (VCRS), ask him or her “what part of recycling don’t you understand?”

     One of the saddest things I’ve heard recently (and I hope this information is wrong) is that all the tons and tons of old cars and other scrap iron collected this summer in the valley clean-up campaigns, simply went to the dump. What a waste.