On Fri, 16 Apr 2004 02:45:03 GMT, Alan Bell wrote:

We share a house with a large backyard.... One of us is concerned with plants,
gardening, conservation and recycling. That person ate an orange and
scattered nine pieces of the peel in a flower bed next to the patio. His
rationale was that the peels were biodegradable. The other of us is
concerned with rules, order and appearance. That person felt the orange
peels should have been placed in a trash can. His rationale is that the
peels are ugly.

We're cool and the best of friends. This didn't set off WWIII. But after
talking about it, we are curious as to what others think is proper. We tried
to put this into newsgroups that would tend to favor one and the other
position.

Both of you are right. Orange peels are both biodegradable and
ugly (when thrown on flower beds). However, you do not deal with
the one characteristic by throwing them onto the flower beds nor
with the other by throwing them in the trash.

The neat-freak should buy the eco-type a plastic compost box.
This will place the neat-freak on the moral high ground, from
which he may then sermonize (or declaim) on the theme that merely
throwing biodegradable wastes around the landscape hardly
constitutes responsible environmental awareness. If the eco-type
squawks, tell 'im that the Internet said so.


--
Uncle Mandrake
Victoria, BC, Canada
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