What Hath God Rot?
Waste is something perceived as unwanted. But is also means:
1 – to fail to use (something or someone) in an appropriate or effective way
2 – to lay waste; to damage or destroy gradually
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When I think about what we see as “waste,” weeds come to mind. Susan Knight, an aquatic plant ecologist, says a weed is simply a plant without a press agent. She should know. The names of a remarkable array of aquatic plants end in “weed” –pondweeds, pickerelweed, smartweed, duckweed, shoreweed, et al. All of them perform valuable ecological functions, yet most lakeshore owners pull them and later complain about the loss of fish or the erosion of their shorelines.
Weeds are also plants out of place, or out of season or time, or too numerous. The “right” place, the “right” time, and the “right” number, of course, are vagaries of human perception. Things we often feel we can throw away, that we see as waste, are like the PR-deficient weeds. The carp that is a “trash” fish in Wisconsin is highly desired in Asia; a tomato plant flourishing in the perennial flowers gets pulled; an eastern hemlock in a managed aspen forest gets cut; native understory species in industrial pine plantations get herbicided. Is waste, then, more a matter of needing someone to appreciate it, perhaps a PR firm to annoit it? After all, a plastic bottle in the landfill becomes a cup for the thirsty, old sheet metal a roof for the homeless.
Continue reading “What Hath God Rot?” here.
