Happy Aloha Friday!

It's Aloha Friday!

And I am getting ready to throw the dipes in the washer and prepare for the weekend. Remember the promise I made about no sposies? I have successfully accomplished it all week long, but the weekends are always the challenge.

Tomorrow we are spending the day with my DH's parents going SWIMMING. But that makes the challenge more difficult. I am not even sure how many dipes to pack! But I am going to follow through. Why should we get the weekends off from CDing? We shouldn't.

Each diaper we use goes into a landfill and will take up to 500 years to decompose.

I wasn't really in tune with that concept until my family moved to Hawaii. If you haven't visited Hawaii (or aren't currently living there, like my sister is!), they have a pretty darn good recycling program. They tax you 6 cents for every water or pop bottle and can you purchase. So if you purchase a 12 pack, they tax on 72 cents. Then, when you turn the cans/bottles in to the recycling program, they refund you 5 cents for each (the other cent goes into the program). So basically, everyone recycles. It would be too much of a financial waste not to.

But it gets better.

The Recycling Center where we lived (in Hilo, Big Island) was located right beside the trash dump. Since it is free to take your trash there yourself rather than having it picked up at your home, a lot of people were already there once a week or so. So those who might be too lazy to recycle were already on site, and with the benefit on the extra dollars, we all did it.

Wait, it gets even better.

At the same location, officials conveniently placed large bins for paper, glass, metal.... EVERYTHING that is recyclable. You were already there. You might as well throw those items in the right bin. And people did. Each time we were there, many others were, too.

In case you haven't heard, Hawaii is made up of a chain of islands and is located quite literally in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Look at a full map or globe (not just the US maps the pretend it is in a box next to California). The islands are tiny. In fact, all of the main inhibited islands wouldn't fill the state of West Virginia.

This left us truly considering where our trash was going. Although we lived on the Big Island, it really wasn't big. Just larger than the others (and it grows a little each day, thanks to the active volcano.) Would it go into the ocean? The rain forest? Would it float around Punalu'u Beach Park, an amazing black sand beach where honu (green sea turtles) often come to rest? Would it kill the hump back whales we could see playing off the coast of Māhukona Beach Park as we fell asleep camping? They were so amazing that they were still there dancing in the water as we woke up! Should we expect Pele to burn it up and make it appear as though we are not a disposable society?

In West Virginia, it's easy to forget about your trash once it leaves your house. There is plenty of room for it to go, right? We don't see it once it leaves. But it is still there. Piling up somewhere. Reeking havoc on this amazing planet we have. Don't you think it is just a little bit selfish to not want to be just a little bit more green? I do.  Why not make a few seconds of sacrifice daily to try to make our home a little bit cleaner?

So this weekend, when I start to put on a sposie diaper because I don't want to bring home 10 extra diapers to wash tomorrow night, I am going to remember the amazing blue waters crashing on the shore behind my Hawaiian Paradise Park house and the wild cut out of Green Sands Beach in southern Hawaii. I am also  going to remember the beauty in my backyard - The New River Gorge, Camp Caesar in Cowen, WV, the remarkable riverfront in downtown Charleston. Heck, even Coonskin Park! I want my kids to know and love these things. I want their kids to know and love them too. And their kids, and their kids and their kids.

So, happy Aloha Friday!