What ReGeneration is to me today

ReGeneration has a couple different defintions to me--a 53-year-old mother of two intelligent, wonderful, artistic children (not biased--just ask anyone who knows them.) In writing to this blog, I will draw from my raising of them, what I see in them as my second generation and my desire to have many generations in our family yet to come. This will NOT happen if we all--old and young--peoples of every economic and social class don't act NOW. Hence, today's meaning of ReGeneration. This time in 2009--and every moment of every day forward--we must make changes, in order to hope for an earth that will be here and habitable for our loved ones to come.

I began recycling in the 1980s. We had an aluminum can crusher --as to store more in the recycling bin we would place on the street on garbage days. We also had a bin for glass. That being said--as I see the world today--I could have done things very differently. If I had done things differently, my portion of the problems existing today would be less--not just my individual contribution but the contribution of the family that I was raising--which could be huge.

I look back to raising my children and realize I was participating in creating the problem. Here's how. When they were beginning school and I made their lunches, I would scoop yogurt out of a large container and put it in a reuseable container. Other items such as cookies and granola bars were taken from a large container and placed into a smaller one that fit in the reusable lunch box.

Do you remember thermoses--those things you put milk, juice, soup, Spaghettio's, and all the other liquids in instead of drink boxes coated in wax or foil pouches that just went into the argh--I hate to say it--garbage/landfill?

Manufacturers began making convenience items. Individually wrapped granola bars were just the beginning. To save time--just as the manufacturers wanted me to--I started placing these in my kids lunches. Over the 15 years of their being in K-12, I became part of the problem but I had no idea.

It makes me very sad today. Ignorance is NOT bliss, I am part of the reason the earth is in a critical conditon. I have become educated and continue to learn about the situation and am actively working to reuse, recycle, reduce, rethink, renew, respect and encourage those who can re-engineer to do so.