What a Waste

Not that long ago, our zoo was hosting a special event which required an "all hands on deck" clean up effort.  I was assigned to clean up a planted area, spacious, but not inhabited by animals for many years, towards the center of the zoo.  It was right up against our food court and main visitor services hub.  I was horrified.  Not by the amount of trash I pulled - that I fully expected - but by the fact that, by the time that I was done, at least half of my bag was filled with photo strips from the nearby photo booth.

It was as if visitors were going in, getting their pictures taken, and then immediately dumping them in the bushes outside.

Today, I engaged in my annual ritual of getting food from our concessions, which I do exactly once per year.  As I waited for my order, I watched in awe as patron after patron dumped mostly-full trays of food in the trash, purchased to placate hungry toddlers who then decided that they didn't want it after all.

I could sense the irritation of the parents.  Zoo food ain't cheap.

So much of the zoo's messaging is about conservation, and so much about conservation is about sustainability - being mindful of what we use (or, in this case, don't use).  I feel like whenever this topic comes up, you have people complaining about how this is going to involve all of us living miserably with terrible qualities of life, having to sacrifice everything on the altar of conservation.

Really, though, we won't.    How much oil is consumed to make plastic crap that's thrown immediately away?  How many acres of habitat cleared to grow food which is just thrown away?  It would make a huge diverse to the sustainability of our planet if we would just produce what we actually need and not squander so much.  That's a key lesson we should be trying to live by - and to share with the public.