We Waste Because of Greed and Selfishness - (2814)

Go Nuts

Seeing food and resources being wasted drives me nuts! Well going nuts doesn't help anyone but looking for the cause of why we waste is much better.

Paradox

The paradox is that greed wants to have and have but it is the same greed and selfishness that wastes or throws into the bin that which it so dearly covets.

Two Avocados

Imagine a household where you by two avocados every week and because you are so busy you forget to eat them or use them in a salad, and so by the end of the week they are black and grey inside and they have to go into the bin (trash for the Americanos) or the garden compost heap.

This happens week after week. So why not just take a five dollar note (two avocados here in Perth costs about $5AU) and put it into the bin or better still put a five dollar note in a jar and after two and a half months there will be a cool $100 sitting there. Then give that $100 to someone.

Normally our answer to that would be: "NO WAY! Why should I give someone $100 they should work and get their own $100 and not be slack!" Or "I don't want to throw away money".

Because effectively that is what we are doing is not putting $100 in the bin every two and a half months.

So we would prefer to waste the two avocados every week and effectively put a $5 dollar note into the bin every week.

All the shops waste so much food because of fear and greed, they can't be giving away food because it goes against the business 'spirit', they are there to make money not give things away. Or that if they give away food they will be sued because they fear someone will get sick and then lose lots of money in the process. So they prefer to throw the food that may have hit its expiry date but is still good.

Greed

With greed we accumulate so much that we can't possibly use it and so then it gets thrown away or we die and what is left over becomes too much for others to deal with and they just bin it, trash it or frivolously give it away.

Observe that it is the western societies that waste the most, and there is no shortage of greed and selfishness in the West.

End (2814).