There used to be a time int his country- well, there are other countries still today that require their young people not only to go to school, but to serve their community for a period of time. Say, two years in the military etc. Even if those countries aren’t in current conflicts, they still required military service, they think it’s good for young people to get that experience (among other reasons I have to assume) and it does things to shape who they are as a person in their society moving forward.
The draft in the United States hasn’t been enacted since 1973. Now, I’m not quite comparing the two, because I would argue the Korean and Vietnam draft were completely useless, however, I would say the United States should adopt some form of mandatory community service. And in my explanation, you’ll see it’s barely that.
We should have schools across the country, of all ages, or let’s say high school age take a field trip to a part of the ocean where plastic is dumped. Head to a “recycling” station, a true one, not your town or city’s “transfer station.” I always hated that word, it’s a watered-down prettied up word for “THE LANDFILL.” If we send kids to these facilities, where we keep literal mountains, and bricks several stories tall of plastic, and tell them this is where your recycling goes. 9% of U.S. recycling actually gets recycled. That’s it. And that was when China was outsourcing our “recycling” program. Think about that. China has said in the last few years it won’t take any more. So now our piles and mountains and bricks of plastic and aluminium are piling up and growing even quicker. So guess where it ends up anyway? In the landfill.
Furthermore, what you deem as “recyclable,” most likely isn’t recyclable. Those white, plastic/ bubble-wrapped lined Amazon packages you get three times a week? Not recyclable. Your “eco-friendly” paper cup that your local coffee shop just replaced with their plastic cups? Not recyclable. The thin, wax-like film lining the inside making it waterproof, is expensive and not easy to re-purpose, therefore, useless to recycle as of right now. 9%, NINE PERCENT. And I’d venture a guess that’s a generous number. Not only that, but at what cost? How efficient is this recycling process, how is it affecting the environment to be “recycling.” We can do better.
Back to the point, if we shipped kids a few states, and sent them to one of these massive facilities, to see that “This pile over here has sat there for 6 years.” and “That brick over there is all cans.” Then take them snorkeling, diving. Yes, diving. Hell, take a few who really want to, and film the endeavor to show kids in an auditorium. Plastic bottles and caps and cans and all sorts of other garbage in mounds, all in the ocean. Tell them how it ends up there, that it stays there. Show them. Not one will understand the severity of how much plastic we DON’T recycle, and how much actually ends up sitting there or worse, in the ocean.
Stuff like this. The price of war, the cost of hospital visits without insurance, the cost of war, the cost of that new phone you asked for Christmas even though you just got a new one because your broke the old new one you had 6 months ago. These things come at an environmental cost. Sure, in 2020 we don’t need to be forcing kids into military uniforms to behave like soldiers, but we do need to be enabling them into uncomfortable realities of our current world. So many of us have the ability to simply sit in our houses and never leave. We can get our groceries and alcohol delivered, work from home, order from any store on the planet right from home WHILE WE WORK and have it at our door in two days flat. We never have to leave.
Nobody understands the cost of it all, and we should be showing them. Not just through a video, but in person. Every kid gets infinitely more excited by a field trip, than a film they’ll have to write a paper on or discuss. They hate that, they hate work, but bring them somewhere where they can physically see the damage? That’s effective.