THE DUMP

Sweet sips now acrid

Mountains of urban decay

The message is "less".

Took a trip to the recycling center

at the Miramar Landfill. Got run

off as I was taking shots of mountains

of our discarded what nots that were

once must haves. Streams of aluminum

cans, compressed bundles of paper,

endless reams, toilets, big screen TV's,

refrigerators, every form of plastic,

once treasures that have lost all value

as our every purchase becomes obsolete.

Yes, the amount of recycling may be

impressive, but more impressive still

is the amount of unnecessary consumption.

Endless. Our system counts on it. Throw

out the cell phone that's perfectly fine and

pick up an iphone, heave your PC out the

back of the truck bed for a shiny new one

that converses with you, chuck the

obscenely gargantuan 52" TV for an

equally obscene flat screen that has

high definition. I'm not suggesting we

all become Luddites but, come on, is

this really necessary? Perhaps the

answer is each neighborhood must

have its own landfill that serves a couple

blocks of housing. Perhaps we'd think

twice about the cavalier heaving when

we have to look out at our mess.