Would You Pay a Visit to the Garbage Dump?
Among Abdul-Matin’s suggestions to awaken our connection to Allah’s earth and our responsibilities to it is to visit landfills or garbage dumps.
It’s not exactly a romantic afternoon or fun-filled family day, but he’s right, of course.
I was born in San Francisco, the same city as the creation of ‘Earth Day’, and having grown up in purportedly earth-friendly California all of my life.
I have earnestly believed that I was doing my part for the environment: buying in bulk to reduce packaging waste, using second-hand goods as much as possible.
In addition to fully using curbside recycling, I also regularly took my children to the recycling centre to drop off our extra and oversized items.
When I first got to Morocco, like many foreigners here, I scoffed at the haphazard waste disposal methods and was disappointed to learn that there was no form of organised recycling here.
Instead, Morocco utilises the traditional methods of reusing everything until it truly is trash.
Here in the mountains, we have to burn our household trash, and now I finally acknowledge every ounce of necessary or unnecessary waste that must be dragged across the foothills to be incinerated in a shallow ditch.
And though I knew that disposable diapers actually take a very, very long time to dispose of, I didn’t know that the strange chemicals they contain to absorb so much liquid also make them very difficult to entirely burn away.
After several attempts at incinerating our disposable diapers and leaving the goopy remains of them on the mountain, my children, who are becoming increasingly concerned about caring for our environment, convinced me to return to cloth diapers—they even offered to help launder them!
The conveniences we have left behind can and are often tallied by my family, but the enrichment of our seemingly accidental but beloved low-impact lifestyle is immeasurable.
Understandably, not everyone can or wants to dirty their hands with this sort of ascetic trip we are on, but I think it’s very likely that you, like me, believe that you are doing your part for the environment in some way or another. But, of course, we could do more.
Take Abdul-Matin’s advice and go spend some time appreciating nature.
While you are out there at the state park or a local you-pick-it farm, notice the oil stains in the parking lot, the multitude of chemicals being used to clean and control your immediate environment, and the trash floating in the stream and piling up in the trash bins.
If that’s not enough to persuade you, maybe you should go visit the local garbage dump and get knee-deep in our mess.
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