I understand you don’t like the “noise pollution” produced
when I set my car alarm at the beach parking lot. That half-second “fart” – as you
describe it – probably made it momentarily difficult to hear the crashing
waves, the screaming seagulls – and the foghorn hooting at least ten times a
minute just up the beach. I do apologize.
My concern is not in your anonymous note, but in the fact
that you used a paper note to express your concern, rather than the far more
environmentally-friendly method of talking to me face-to-face.
First of all, I did not read the article included with your
note on the ineffectiveness of car alarms, so at least half of the 8 ½ by 11
sheet of paper you slipped under my windshield wiper was wasted. Why didn’t I
read it? I was more interested in your personalized note (reproduced obviously
on a photocopier; you must have dozens of these sheets in your vehicle,
ready-folded to slip under offenders’ wiper blades).
Let me tell you something about your note.
I could have walked up to your beach and tossed it into the
water. Or left it on the beach itself. Or thrown it in the nearby toilet. Or
made a hat, a brooch, or a pterodactyl out of it before doing any of that or
simply ripping the paper into little bitty bits and leaving it in the parking
lot for the seagulls to eat. See, once you put that paper under my wiper blade
and walked away wrapped in the cloak of your own smugness, you lost control of
that paper. Not the responsibility for producing a bit of waste paper that
someone else has to recycle or throw away, but the method of its disposal.
I choose to recycle the paper. Lucky you.
That is, after I drive it home, a distance of roughly 1,000
miles. Your note is part of the roughly 450 pounds of carbon dioxide my 2005
Honda Pilot (you remember, the one with the farting car alarm) produced on that
return journey.
Here’s the calculator I used, if you’re curious.
But because scrap paper is bought and sold on the open
market, I have no idea where it goes once it’s put into the recycling bin. Your
note’s journey isn’t over.
It could end up at the mill closest to me (Lewiston, Idaho;
about 500 miles distant) or as far away as Palatka, Florida, a distance of 2,300
miles – and that’s if it stays in the United States. It could conceivably go
even further. And it’s going to be hauled wherever it goes by a diesel truck – and
by boat, if it goes overseas – transport options which spew a lot more carbon
dioxide into the air per 1,000 miles than my SUV (about 1,600 pounds, to be
exact, for your standard diesel-powered truck).
Then there’s the recycling process. Granted, recycling paper
is more environmentally-friendly than producing paper from virgin fiber, but
there’s still an environmental cost to paper recycling that could have been
foregone had you talked to me face-to-face about my farting car alarm or, if
confrontation or human interaction isn’t your schtick, just sucking up the
half-second interruption my car alarm activation introduced into your morning’s
enjoyment of waves, seagulls, foghorn.
Instead, consider the hydrogen peroxide and sodium
hydrosulfite that went into bleaching your note for re-use and the ink sludge
that’s disposed of in landfills. That’s the cost of fighting noise pollution
using the passive-aggressive note method, after all. A face-to-face
conversation would have produced zero pollution (aside from mutual bad breath
and a little carbon dioxide) and perhaps a personal connection that would have
more seriously affected my injudicious car-farting than would an article from
the American Automobile Association and an anonymous note from a beach asshole,
but as it is, you were probably worried I was an axe-wielding homicidal maniac
who would not take kindly to a reasoned conversation about noise pollution. And
the feeling is mutual – because as I left the parking lot, I looked at everyone
there wondering who the slack-jawed, half-second-car-fart-intolerant loon was.
We both did our part to make Bullards Beach a more peaceful place.
So, by way of apology, I’m sorry my half-second car alarm
fart upset you. I will, in the future, be more judicious in its use – as long
as you promise to cut down on the amount of paper you foist off on my brother
farting offenders. Consider how much pollution you’re contributing to with your
notes before you copy and place the next one, please. It’s for the Earth, after
all. The next time I’m at the beach and forget and make my car fart, come talk
to me. I’ll listen. If I can hear you over the foghorn.
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