Earth un-friendly flags

My tomato plants are starting to bear fruit, I've got pumpkin plants in bloom this year and we really don't have to worry about our supply of fresh herbs each weekend as we enjoy grilling outdoors and eating in the open air. I've left the artichokes to flower for the most part, not really seeing the point in harvesting one artichoke at a time. Perhaps next year, the crop will be more prolific and we'll be able to enjoy the bounty. But for now, the wild blue flowers will be reward enough. My Periwinkles are finally in the ground and starting to grow and my compost pile will soon pay me back for all of the offerings I've left it this year. Holly (my 17 month old) loves our garden just as much as her Mama and we enjoy time outside every day.

So with all of this to be thankful for, what could I possibly have to complain about? Well, not much actually. But there is one thing that's been bugging me for the past several weeks. We recently celebrated Israeli Independence Day and something about the holiday traditions irked the environmentalist in me. Each year, I'm guessing that hundreds of thousands of miniature flags are sold to be mounted on car windows for a few days and then discarded. The nylon alone in this mass of flags is worrisome enough. But the amount of plastic that gets thrown out each year in the form of flag "poles" is sickening.

On the rare occasion one sees magnetic flags that are stuck on the car door or trunk lid. But there are still far too many of these disposable plastic flags being sold every year. So, what can be done about all of this plastic? Perfectly "good" plastic that only had the misfortune of being "used" for a week on someone's car. Well, I admit that I don't know all there is to know about what the sun does to this plastic and whether or not it's possible to reuse these plastic flag mounts. But I do think that at the very least, the mounts should be collected at the end of the Independence Day festivities and recycled in one form or another in a gesture of national pride if not concern for the environment in general.

With that in mind, I've decided to try to get this organized for next year. It's too late to prevent all of those flags from being dumped in lands fills this time around, but perhaps we can change things for next year. Afterall, the holiday is celebrating a love of this land. One can only hope that people will respond favorably to efforts to keeping their country just a little bit cleaner.

Fingers crossed....