To the Editor May 1, 2020:
Imagine you buy a Nintendo Switch, but you already have a 3DS with thirty games that still work perfectly. Unfortunately, your 3DS games will not work on the Nintendo Switch, so you throw away all the 3DS games and the 3DS. Then you go buy some new Nintendo Switch games for $60 each. You probably aren’t aware, but you have just helped destroy the earth by throwing away technology that worked just fine so you could have the latest game system. People in our country are very wasteful. Most people just want to buy what they want and not what they need.
Did you know that about seven billion trees are cut down every year so we can have paper products that we only use once and then throw away? The problem with this is that trees clean our air. But instead of using reusable cloths to clean our counters or to wipe off our hands, we chop down trees for paper towels and napkins. Instead of bringing a mess kit on camping trips or using real plates at parties, people use paper plates that just go in the trash. At the very least, if we take down a tree, we should be planting a new one to replace the one we chopped down.
Toys are made so cheaply that they don’t last and tend to break. When kids’ toys break, they just get thrown away and end up in landfills. Most of the toys are made of plastic, so they don’t break down in the environment. Then kids want to buy more toys, and the cycle repeats.
Did you know electronics have bad chemicals in them that can be toxic? When we throw our electronics away or continually buy new cell phones to have the latest ones, our old electronics pollute the water with those chemicals. They also poison poor people in other countries who take the electronics apart for parts. A better idea would be to fix our electronics when they break or send updates to the electronics we already have.
In scouts, we learn about how it’s important to leave no trace. I wish that our country would try to think about ways to decrease waste. We shouldn’t buy things that don’t last or have one use. We should use reusable bottles for our water and refuse straws at restaurants. And when we go to the store, we should bring cloth bags instead of using plastic. I’m eleven years old, and I want our earth to stay unpolluted because it’s our only home. Would anyone like to do this with me?
Sincerely,
Tristan Reimers
Troop 263 in Granite Falls