Immigrants vs Plastic Water Bottles

Three weeks ago I bought a 24 pack of bottled water. Then, I had a conversation with my adult son, Jack. He asked me to start teaching my youngest child, Sandor, about the dangers of water bottles and plastic bags. Plastic bags and bottles take roughly 1,000 years to decompose. That means those 24 bottles will be gone from our land fills and oceans in 3018. Crap, this planet in trouble.

Everyone has heard of The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a massive island of trash, made up, for the most part of plastic, and it’s bigger than the state of Texas.

Eighty five percent of sea turtles die because of plastic stuff in the ocean.

Plastic crap is destroying our beautiful little green and blue planet. And that’s what all my kids are afraid of….not immigrants. I have four kids and not one is worried about immigrants taking something away from them. They are all smart, educated young people. They are not naïve or stupid. And they simply understand the dangers of plastics and pollution.

They also understand that the likely hood of an immigrant or refugee ever doing them physical harm is statistically minute. According to Business Insider, ” The chance of an American being murdered by an undocumented immigrant terrorist is 1 in 10.9 billion per year. ”

Not one of my children wants a minimum wage job, so they are not worried in any way, about immigrants or refugees taking jobs. Plus, they appreciate the beautify and diversity new cultures bring to America. They love and thrive on new experiences and ideas.

My husband and I will be gone in 20 years and we’ll be leaving the great country to our kids and others like them. So I’m going to follow their lead.  They are not worried about immigrants and know with smart laws and restrictions there’s room in America. But they are terrified of the destruction brought on by plastics pollution. Plastics will take more form them, entire species of animals, clean water, air and land, than immigrants ever will.

You want something to be afraid of? Each day, people in the U.S. throw away more than 60 million plastic water bottles, most of which end up in landfills or as litter in America’s streets, parks and waterways.

We can only make things better when we recognize where the true danger and threat lies.

My Version of Eco-Terrosm

It Spring time and that means the turtles are on the move.  I don’t know why they feel the need to cross the street in order to woe a another sexy turtle mate successfully.  I don’t know why they can’t date a turtle from their side of the road. But they can’t, so  they must cross the street.

And every Spring I see the thing that absolutely enrages me.  People run over turtles. It’s horrendous and completely avoidable. If you can’t avoid hitting a turtle you should not have a drivers license.  If you do it on purpose, you’re going to Hell.

This was my frame of mind last Spring when I came up with a new plan to save the turtles.  Alex didn’t know what was going on when several boxes of plastic turtles arrived via Amazon Prime.  The first box had 100 tiny turtles in a plastic bag. They were adorable, buy only the size of a quarter.  They were too small for my plan.

I hit pay dirt with the next delivery, six perfect, life like plastic turtles, hand painted from Germany.

At first Alex was fascinated by my plan to save the turtles. Then, as he watched me carefully insert a big fat nail into the beautiful plastic turtles his fascination turned into fear…for me.

“I’m gonna put this on the side of the highway. If people run over a turtle they’ll get a flat tire,” I announced.

Alex laughed, then realized I was serious. Really, really serious. “I’m pretty sure that’s against the law.”

“Who’s gonna know?” I shrugged.  “I won’t put them near out house.”

“Seriously, this is a bad idea, Diana.”

“We’ll see,” I said in my best “casual I’m not gonna do it voice”. I didn’t want him to be arrested as an accomplice.

Eco-terrorism suits me. So, this Spring, if you see a turtle looking for a hot date. I suggest you do everything you can to avoid him.