Do We Have to Use All Those Throwaway Products?

I was totally shocked when seeing those astounding photos of an African boy sucking stale from a cattle hip! I guess nobody will be so numb if they have ever seen those photos!

What I am going to talk maybe is less connected with Africa but it is surely bound up with everyone else. I learned a group of numbers in astonishment that we use 4.5 billion throwaway chopsticks per year in China, that is, 25 million grown birches will be cut yearly. Shall we count how many birches will be left after 5 year, 10 year, 20 years? What about all those throwaway packaging, paper products … For how long the natural resources can afford this kind of life style?

Can you just imagine how much leftover a restaurant will produce in one day and count how many restaurants in Beijing? What about the whole country? Once a foreign friend asked me why Chinese people used to order so much food and leave quite a few dishes untouched and throw them away? They were puzzled even more when they got to know there are still a lot of people in China have not got enough to eat!

Shall we start from ourselves for the faith that every small attempt, repeated, will finally complete any undertaking. Yes, what we have saved maybe mean nothing to those miserable African people, it may mean a lot to our own consciences.

[此贴子已经被作者于2005-9-22 16:31:58编辑过]

Dear Jeannie,

Huray! What you have just said has gone straight to my heart. Nature has generously endowed us with a pair of decent-looking eyes but they are too impotent and even too blind to see the picture of a real world we all human beings live in. It is not only about the food, the chopsticks or those packages we threw away but also our conscience and compassion we so easily gave up.

Sometimes our love and mind are so narrow that another person can hardly sqeeze into them. we are so confined in this micro-part of world of our own that we simply do not see the people in need and small things we can help with, such as trying not to order more than enough food, holding small parties, also less eating competitions,and so on and so forth.

I suggest there be more food donations to the people living in exetreme poverty who can not even afford to stuff full their stamochs in the world as well as in our China.

Wow! I am now speaking like an ambassador again! Anyway, let's start from doing the small things and forming a consciencious mind.

Best wishes

Charlie