Hey, hey – what the hell are you doing? I see you. Put that old tire down. Are you crazy? Who throws old tires down in the creek?
What? You think it’s going to melt? Biodegrade? Decompose? Are you nuts?
You throw an old tire in a creek and it’s gonna be there for a million years. Okay, maybe that’s an exaggeration. Let’s just say it’s going to be there a long, long time. You think it’s going to magically rot away. Some biological organisms are going to eat it and it will disappear?
Fuggeddaboutit! There are no organisms that feed on rubber. So after ten thousands of years, the heat, friction from movement, freezing and evaporation might break that tire down into smaller pieces, but it’s not going away.
You want to do the right thing, don’t you? Make a tire swing out of it. Or a planter. Or a chair. There’s a thousand ways to reuse tires and you can find them all on that Internet thingy. This country disposes of 300 million tires per year – almost one per person. If we put them in a landfill they trap water that attracts rodents and mosquitoes. Plus, the methane emissions get trapped and the whole pile ignites. It ain’t easy to put out a tire fire. Tire-fire may sound silly, but not if the smoke is pouring into your backyard.
Tires can be converted into TDF – that’s tire-derived fuel. It’s an alternative to fossil fuels and even better, it produces 25 percent more energy than coal. The tires are put through a shredder that uses powerful knives to tear the tires into small pieces. The steel can be sorted out for other recycled uses. Then the remaining pieces of rubber can be incinerated to produce energy, used as playground mulch or even material for new tires.
See what I’m saying? There’s a right way to save the planet and fight back against climate change, and there’s a wrong way. It just takes a little bit of consideration for your old Mother Nature. Trust me, you don’t want to be on my bad side.
All my love,
Mom
Jay Harrison is a writer and creative consultant for DesignConcept. His mystery novel, Head Above Water, is available on Amazon and Kindle. You can also visit his author page here.
It seems like most of the advice about retirement is to keep working. Experts cite financial and health benefits, as well as the ongoing need for people to live with purpose. Apparently, only a job provides such purpose?
So, here’s me and my old (like really old) buddy, Sal, on the way back from Nebraska hauling a second-hand bulldozer to Michigan. Sal is driving. That’s a condition of his involvement—only he can drive his International Harvester truck. That leaves me with the task of navigating and keeping him awake during the long tedium of wheat fields waving.
Apparently, baby boomers have taken over e-commerce shopping. From groceries to clothing, rather than risking in-person hunting and gathering, boomers are going online to get just about everything. Peeps over 65 are the fastest-growing demo for e-commerce shopping.
It’s true that old friends can be gold, especially in our golden years. Many studies demonstrate the value of a social network to our physical and mental health, and it’s true, but a friendship that has endured for 62 years is something else entirely. I met Vicky when I was five and she was six – playing at her house I remember the calendar on the wall – 1959. She was a tall and skinny kid, infinitely kind, and bookish like me. Together we climbed trees, swam in the river, played in the woods, and rode our bikes to get to the library in our small New England town. We were freckled and bare foot each summer, and as we morphed into teens, we stayed close, looking like sisters with our long brown hair, embroidered shirts and hippie skirts. Together we learned about the adulthood that lay ahead of us, sharing knowledge, secrets, and even the first boyfriend each of us had. When her mother died, I was 21, going to journalism school in Oregon. Vicky was home in Rhode Island trying to keep her family together. On the night she died, it was I who dreamed of her, with a glowing light around her and loving smile on her face. Though Vicky wished she had had that dream, my own mother stepped up her role in Vicky’s life, staying in touch and visiting her over the years.
There was an older woman in the grocery store. First impression…a contemporary. But you know how it is sometimes when you’re shopping, how you keep criss-crossing a person as you cruise from aisle to aisle. About the fourth time we passed, I said, “Excuse me. I can’t help noticing that we keep passing each other. Are you stalking me? Or is that just wishful thinking on my part?”
