Essay:Resisting Socialist Landfills
There is a troublesome form of socialism right under our noses here in America and other parts of the world, and it has remained undetected by even some of the most conservative among us. The form of socialism I'm referring to is socialist landfills. Many of us pile up garbage at the curb weekly (and in some areas, multiple times per week), not even considering how socialist it is for us to do so. Landfills are typically run by local governments, even when the collection is done by private enterprise. It costs the taxpayer the same to put out lots of garbage as it does if you have no garbage, which isn't fair if you think about it. Throwing things away to go to a landfill is the socialist easy way out, quite like begging for welfare rather than working for a living, or sending children to public school rather than homeschooling them. Furthermore, landfills are wasteful. Because landfills are socialist and wasteful, we should do everything we can to minimize what we landfill. Below are some ideas to get rid of things through capitalist venues, rather than socialist landfills.
- Reuse - If something can be reused, why would you throw it away? Reuse saves you money and it keeps things out of the hands of socialists. Why throw things away if you're just going to buy new later?
- Sale or Donation - Perfectly good things are often thrown to the curb when people just don't want or need them anymore. Instead of landfilling these items, why not sell them or donate them? In addition to reducing the need for a socialist landfill, you can make money from the sale, or write the donation off of your taxes. Donation can also benefit great causes.
- Reducing consumption - While I don't feel that you should deprive yourself of things that you actually need or want, it is a waste of money and God's creation to buy things you won't ever use. For example, buying more groceries than you can possibly consume is wasteful and contributes to socialist landfills. Ditto for buying clothes that you'll never wear, tools you'll never use, toys you're children will never play with, etc.
- Recycling - Have you ever considered how much more capitalist recycling is compared to a socialist landfill? Recycling is usually done by private enterprise. Long before the global warming alarmists, recycling was popular for more conservative reasons. There's many recycling options available. Although I personally prefer when the recyclers pay me or take the recyclables for free, it's still better to pay to recycle something than to send it to a socialist landfill; you're paying for everything you put in a landfill whether you realize it or not, take a look at your local taxes. Anything metal can be sold to scrap metal companies by the pound. Look in your local phone book for a scrap yard near you. You're a fool if you throw anything gold away; there's several of those places around like Gold Pros that will pay you for your gold. There's several companies on the internet like Cashforlaptops.com that will pay money for your old electronics, many will even pay for you to ship the item to them. Many retailers offer recycling services, from plastic bags to electronics to fishing line. Many grocery stores accept plastic bags for recycling, and some also take paper bags and Styrofoam. Many electronic stores will take your old electronics (sometimes for a fee, sometimes for free). Many office supply stores will take back old ink and toner cartridges, and some will even pay you for them. Many bait and tackle shops accept old fishing line for recycling. A lot of places that sell DVDs and CDs will take your old discs, and some will pay you for them. Some, like Best Buy, will even take your broken ones. Many cell phone retailers take old cell phones for recycling. Recycling drop-offs and curbside recycling is available in many regions, and even in cases where the local government collects the items for recycling, it's still more capitalist than landfilling because private enterprise at least gets a chance to do something with the items whereas landfills are completely socialist.
- Composting - You can put unwanted organic material to good use by composting it instead of turning it over to the socialists.
- Burning garbage - What can't be reused or recycled in some way (which is very little of anything) can be burned, so long as there's no local laws or ordinances against it. Major corporations can burn garbage to produce energy, just as they burn oil and coal.
If you think about it, we don't really need socialist landfills at all. If you can't eliminate your dependence on socialist landfills altogether, then you should be able to reduce the amount of garbage you generate to one tall kitchen bag by using the advice above. Because of where I live, composting and burning are not feasible options for me, but I have reduced my family's dependence on landfills to one tall kitchen bag per week. We throw very little away to go to a socialist landfill. If more people did the same, the government would have one less excuse to charge such outrageous taxes.
