We went to the recycling center today and it got me to thinking about how much of a consumer society we've become.

Here in KY, they recycle aluminum cans by the pound..in NY it was 5 cents a can..you paid a deposit when you bought it, and they gave it back to you when you returned the can.
That was more of a forced recycling than a voluntary thing.

We throw so many things away these days...and run out and by another one...the new improved one. We don't save string, newspapers, or aluminum foil, or anything like we did during World War II. In those days, we've saved everything, and I mean everything, we had a good reason then, I guess.

Maybe that's where I got my pack-rat habits..that, and living on poverty row for so many years. Most everything can be re-used at least once I think.

I don't know if its because we import cheap, inferior products that don't last long...or if we have just become accostomed to having everything "brand new".

I like old things...I like to find new uses for things..I find comfort in knowing that I'm not wasteful...well, at least not as wasteful as some. I don't take it to the extreme...I mean, I don't hang up paper towels to dry so I can use them again or anything like that. But I do tend to be a bit conservative.

My question is why...why have we become such a wasteful society? Am I just stuck in the 20th century? Or will my nightmare become a reality...the planet earth nothing but one big landfill??????