Waste

I realize that asking this question amounts to: ”Why are people bad?” or “Why is there evil in the world?” But still, along with my perfectly cheerful Iron Man viewing yesterday, I had a couple of bad experiences too that made me dwell on a darker side of life: Why are we so wasteful?

First, I went by Wal-Mart to pick up some groceries on the way home from the movie. I grabbed some eggs and, inspecting the carton, found one broken. I put it back and grabbed another carton, which was full of unbroken eggs. There was a stock guy standing there, and he asked me if the carton I’d put back had a broken egg in it. I told him it did, and he took it and put it on his cart, saying that their policy was to throw away the entire carton if it had a single broken egg in it. I thought about this “policy” for the rest of the day. There was a time when the stock guy would remove the broken eggs, replace them with good ones, and discard only the eggs that were broken. That keeps waste to a minimum. I realize that food in grocery stores goes bad and they throw it out; food goes bad in my own fridge and I throw it out. But this seems like wanton waste to me.

Also, there was a really big Iron Man cardboard display in the theater where I went to see the movie. I asked one girl who worked there if I could have it. She said, “Probably. We just throw them away when the movie’s over, or one of the managers takes them home.” She told me I should ask a manager. So I did, and his reply was, “No, we have to return those to the distributor. We’re not allowed to give them away.” He lied to me with a smile on his face. And what really gripes me about that is that the truth would have been just fine. Even if he’d said, “No, dude, I’ve got claim on that one. Sorry,” I would have been fine with it. The alternative is even worse, that they would rather destroy it than give it to a fan. I just wanted to put it on my office wall.

Waste is one of those things that really plagues me. There are too many daily examples to point out. I wish it was different.