Son, take out the trash!

(Baonghean) -Children are the future of humanity, that’s why we always keep in mind to give them the best. Think about what we can inherit for the next generation, consider that nothing can last longer than trash. Indeed!

Assuming a typical father today drinks an average of one can of beer a day, smokes two packs of cigarettes a week and reads two newspapers every morning, the minimum amount of waste he produces in a year is 365 cans of beer, 105 packs of cigarettes and 730 old newspapers.

As for mothers, they consume an average of one and a half cartons of milk per day and use about five plastic bags when going to the market or shopping, and half a can of cooking oil per month, which means that each year they will release into the environment 548 cartons of milk, 183 plastic cans and 1,825 plastic bags.

Assuming they maintain this level of consumption for 30 years, in the end, the father "owns" a total of 10,950 beer cans, 3,150 cigarette packs and 21,900 newspapers, while the mother is not far behind with 16,440 paper boxes, 5,490 plastic cans and 54,750 nylon bags.

Knowing that to be completely destroyed, a beer can takes from 80 to 200 years, a cigarette pack takes from 1 to 5 years, a newspaper takes from 2 to 4 weeks, a cardboard box takes 5 years, a plastic can takes 500 years, and a nylon bag also takes several hundred years. So in conclusion, when these two people pass away, they still leave behind for their children, even grandchildren, great-grandchildren, great-great-grandchildren,... and... a huge amount of garbage that has not been completely destroyed. Above, we have only listed a few basic types of waste, but if we list them all, we don't know how many generations later our descendants will be able to raise their heads above the sea of ​​garbage. Just thinking about it makes me shudder!

Reality shows that waste is a prominent problem not only in developing countries like Vietnam but also in capitalist countries with a long history of industry. The shortcomings in the problem of solving and treating waste lie in many links in the chain of production - consumption, disposal - recycling/destruction stages. The responsibility lies with many parties, perhaps the manufacturer, because the production and processing process has not been properly controlled, causing a lot of toxic waste to leak into the environment. We also cannot ignore the lack of awareness of the people, when dumping garbage even in places with "No dumping" signs has become a daily occurrence in the district, and our people often calmly sit and eat a few meters away from a pile of garbage emitting a strong smell.

Finally, the waste treatment process is of course still backward, not commensurate with the amount of waste produced, so the situation of waste backlog or wastewater leakage from landfills has always been a burning issue in recent years. That is why our children, despite eating better and dressing better than their parents in the past, are getting more and more sick.

In the end, it is just the law of cause and effect, “the father eats salty food, the son will be thirsty”, nothing more. I wonder what the father and mother in the first example would think when they know that just a small gesture like throwing away beer cans or using plastic bags indiscriminately can take away the fresh breath of their children for hundreds of years to come.

The above unconsciousness is the general unconsciousness of the whole society, not necessarily because we do not understand its harm, but because of the lack of thorough understanding of how harmful our above behaviors are, and to what extent, when. The resources we leave to our children are not only trash, but more than that, the trash culture that we instill and educate them about.

If we blatantly litter in front of our children, and even encourage them to do the same, we are polluting not only their future world, but also the world of their children, and the world of the future and the future. After all, among all the good things we can give our children, it turns out that we also have the important responsibility of taking the blame for the snail-eating parents, which is really...not good!

Hai Trieu (Email from Paris)