NATURAL WONDERS

IS IT WASTE OR WEALTH?

Rex Burress 

Look at the definition of the word 'waste' in the dictionary, and you will see that it occupies considerable space on the same page as 'watch' and 'water!' “Waste” also has many multiple meanings, including vacant land, scrap, garbage, excrement, wastewater, and sewage.

You can be wasteful with wastepaper put in a wastebasket in a wasteland! But the waste that propelled me into this article was a newspaper item about ' delay in waste transfer facility in Glenn County.' It seems the plan is to use 8.5 acres for a garbage-sorting area near Stony Creek, and there are environmental concerns. It's something like the Sites Reservoir debate; there are those who don't want to lose land and the fauna/flora it supports, and others who want the water.

Surplus and waste is a sign of the times, which develops naturally because of increased human populations and increased production of agricultural commodities and machines for war that cause further waste.

The more that is eaten means more excrement to dispose of or utilize, and more containers to discard. Hence more garbage, garbage dumps, and sewage. Hence more waste management, sewer systems, and cesspools.

At one of my favorite places, Oakland Feather River Camp near Quincy, CA., an elaborate water system as well as a complex cesspool system is necessary to accommodate the large number of summer visitors. The pipes and cesspool are underground, so most campers do not realize the underpinnings of their paradise. Like streams and reservoirs, the flow has to go somewhere when full.

Not all is lost! A Japanese sewage reclamation business makes up to 10 million dollars per one million population by recovering precious metals by mining the waste! “Rings and things flushed toward the sea!” There is money from the fertilizer conversion, too. Even guano from bats and manure from livestock increases the wealth base! Used cars and machinery become piled in great heaps as a result of the neverending industrial-output of replaceable merchandise. Viscous circle!

Waste is seemingly part of creating art, since painting a picture, or making pottery, sculpture, or any piece of art, leaves a lot of leftovers in its wake. Hardened paint, short pencils, smears of clay, dried brushes, paper scraps...in the studio, and in the house.

You can follow the progress of civilization by the debris left behind, much like the route of the Lewis and Clark 1804 Expedition which can be traced by the mercury medicine in toilets made by the 33 explorers. With the human animal of course, waste other than organics is left due to discarded manufacturing and construction material that becomes litter. Other than fossils, what wild animal- evidence lingers longer than human stone artifacts, building foundations, and monuments?

Most bird parents remove defecation from the nest by taking it by beak to deposit elsewhere in order to hide signs of the nestlings. Soft waste tissue is readily absorbed back into the soil via decay and decomposers, reducing particles into humus.

There is seemingly tremendous waste in excessive plants, seeds, insects, and population explosions, but unlike plastics, pop bottles, and plane parts, biodegradable nature fuses back into the soil for the advancement of life on earth.

“One is constantly reminded of the infinite lavishness and fertility of Nature—inexhaustible abundance amid what seems enormous waste. And yet when we look into any of her operations that lie within reach of our minds, we learn that no particle of her material is wasted or worn out. It is eternally flowing from use to use, beauty to yet higher beauty.”

--John Muir