Eco-Mandments™

10 ways to… Walk the Talk

1. Thou shalt not try to keep up with the Joneses, and you are all Jones.
2. Thou shalt not waste anything, especially yourselves.
3. Thou shalt recycle everything, and purchase recycled products whenever possible.
4. Thou shalt think of thy neighbors and conserve energy wherever and whenever possible.
5. Thou shalt maintain a high mileage car and use alternative transportation whenever possible, even unto carpooling and bicycling, oh yes.....walk as much as possible it is good for body and soul.
6. Thou shalt eat sensibly consuming less animal protein and eating more vegetables and grains from local sources, organic when possible..
7. Thou shalt actively support and consume sustainable technology and write thy Congressman and Senators as much as thy can, even unto irritation.
8. Thou shalt not overpopulate the earth. Have a good time, but do not overpopulate. Be active in other ways, especially environmentally.
9. Thou shalt put in more than you take out. Simple huh! All will be rewarded for this.
10. Thou shalt reduce thy carbon and energy footprint by 35% to 45% by the year 2012 A.D. and live a better life.

These 10 Eco-Mandments were imparted to me while I was visiting my local Landfill early on Easter Sunday morning. They were given to me, so don’t blame me if something you think is important is missing. At least I reminded you of it.
That I was dressed in a 2007 Mcnabb Eagles jersey, tattered cargo shorts, and 70’s Rainbow flip/flops, is irrelevant. What was relevant was that I was there to drop off my recycling for the week.

As I was sleepily dumping my plastic bottles in the wrong bin, I noticed a strong oily smell coming from the other side of the large landfill mountain in front of me. As I turned my head away from the smoldering paper recycling bin, I noticed a much larger plume of black smoke rising from the other side of the Mt. Everest of garbage in front of me I thought this was strange, and I felt compelled to find out what kind of fire was burning in the landfill. I wanted to see if anyone official was watching over it. So off I went.

It seemed like I climbed for days, up the landfill mountain, and up through garbage mounds of stuff that could have been recycled, reprocessed, reused and resold. On and on I pressed for what seemed like days, not quite 40, but it was a long time, maybe 25 minutes, until I finally came over the rise of piled and mashed refuse to the source of the large plume of black smoke. There was a large pile of tires burning and an older gentleman sitting with his back to me roasting what appeared to be a large Ballpark Frank on a stick. Oh Yeah, he was wearing totally radical Patagonia recycled spun nylon shorts, a cool Mexico Rules T-shirt, and of course.... retread flip flops..
As I made my way towards the elderly gentleman I noticed that the black smoke now had no smell and seemed to dissipate into thin air leaving nothing in terms of pollution or physical preference.

I thought this was rather odd, so I made my way up to the gentleman and began to introduce myself. As I was about to say my name the “Elderly Gentleman”, who was looking for his bottle of mustard, said, without turning his head, “Paul I've been waiting for you, what took you so long?”. As I was about to explain about putting the glass into the wrong bin and the smoking paper..... he interrupted. “No need to explain. I’ve been watching you for a long time now, and I have something I need to give to you and something I need you to do.

“Huuh” I uttered in my best Homer Simpson voice DUUH .... he said, unimpressed, “Take these 10 Eco-Mandments out to the public and disseminate them amongst the masses. Place them in: convenience stores, gas stations, churches, schools, offices, railway stations, bus depots, shopping malls, yes and even Opera Houses”.
What about Gentlemen’s clubs? I asked.
“Got that covered, but thanks” He Said....

All I could think of was” if this was God, and he can have anything he wants, why was he roasting old dumpster hotdogs over a tire fire? “ Then, it was as if I was hit by a jolt of solar electricity, or a least hit by one of those new high caffeine colas, I had it. But before I could ask more, or move to get a closer look at what I now believed to be the hungriest being in the universe, he was gone, and the smoke was gone with him and there I was standing in front of: two shinny spinning hubcap rims, each one with 5 Eco-Mandments etched on the spokes of the beautiful anodized aluminum frames.
Cool. Really, cool.

As I walked back through the valley of garbage I feared no evil for I smelled so bad then that nothing would harm me, actually there is not much chance of getting mugged in a landfill on Easter Sunday morning. So I thought....

Out of Nowhere came to of the fastest young me I have ever seen. He grabbed the rims, laughed and sped away. I never saw him again. Nor did I get the spinners back. I felt ...well slow...yeah that’s it. Even though I had lost the Eco-Mandments, I felt uplifted, divine, pure, like one of those Prius owners who pulls up next to a gas guzzler at a red light.

So that's my story. Thank God I have a photographic memory. Here are the 10 Eco-Mandments. Learn them, live them. Be good to each other and share. Apparently we are supposed to recycle everything... including hot dogs...And if for some reason you had a similar experience while on your own religious or spiritual journey, and you notice an Eco-mandment that was missed from my list, don’t blame me, please add it to the bottom of the list and follow it religiously.

Oh yeah, and the next time you pull up to one of those loud bouncy fat rides at a stop light and you start feeling annoyed, or slightly superior in your high mileage combustion buggy...check those feelings, and then check those spinners on that fat ride...they just might have the truth written all over them..