meditation on trash

As Julia Butterfly Hill famously said, "When you throw something away, where is away?"
We are now in an age where we are so connected to everyone else on the planet that it is impossible for us to ignore the fact that what has been so-called trash for so long has been piling up in the backyards of those that cannot afford to pay to have it sent elsewhere. "Away" seems to be the landfills in Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua. The economically impoverished areas in every city in the United States. Natural areas that cannot defend for themselves against the piles of trash that accumulate every day, destroying her slowly and relentlessly.
Why? Because we are not yet conscious of how our actions are affecting the rest of the planet. Or we are addicted to disposable goods, having a hard time putting the brakes on.
Here I am living in a sustainable community where we are using as little pre-packaged goods as possible. We are conscious of our use of plastics and things that have a very short life span and do our best to eliminate these things from our daily use. We do not have a "trash pick-up". No one is going to come take it away.
So, each thing that we cannot compost or eat, we must look at as a resource. These things, if possible, will be reused or re-appropriated. Empty bottles as containers for new things. Old clothing as mulch for the garden. The wrappers of things that are brought into the community or things we cannot find a reuse for, are stuffed into plastic bottles and the bottles full of trash are then used for building houses. Cool, eh?
I was doing my best to go through our "resources" the other day, realizing that just dealing with the little bit of trash that a community of 15 or so conscious individuals has created over the past few weeks is more than we need to be creating. Then I thought of the amount of trash that is created when I live in the states!
I am meditating on waste and how to eliminate it from my life as much as possible. It's worthwhile to play this game. I am already noticing that I have declined buying a few things in the tienda that I would have otherwise gotten had I not been acutely aware of where each package ends up...in my own backyard.