Help Me Color the World

About a week ago, I wrote about my change in perspective.

That has continued to change since we've gotten back to America.

For starters, I am definitely more aware of how much stuff we throw away.

And until recently, I never thought about where "away" might be located.

Now you would think that it would have become painfully clear to me after Hurricane Katrina, when we were cleaning out our house, and there was no trash pickup, because the garbage dumps were all full, and there was no place to put any refuse (rubbish, if you're Aussie. Or from the UK). But that didn't really make it sink in.

In reality, our landfills are over-filled, and something must be done.

Truthfully, it wasn't until we were visiting Rottnest Island in Western Australia, that I realized what a bother this trash situation could be.

The island is quite small, and so they think about their rubbish quite a bit. People there are very conscious about conserving resources (there's no need to get 20 napkins with your takeaway food when just 1 will do) and recycling, to control the rubbish situation.

(BTW, I know I know you want to see pictures on this blog. It's just a matter of my learning how the heck to get the pix onto my computer and then I can put them on the blog. Laziness is one of the curses you endure when you're married to a technical genius. Hang tight, they're coming.)

We got back in town from Australia around 8 or 9PM Monday night, and since there was no food in the house (after being away for a month) we decided to get some dinner. We wanted to go to our favorite little sushi place, but they had just closed...and guess what was still open?

Now don't laugh -- considering we had just come home from a month in Australia, and we were missing the country, and very hungry -- but we actually decided to go eat at Outback Steakhouse.

Despite the neon Foster's signs everywhere (you do know that no one in Australia drinks Foster's, right? It's made specifically for export to us yanks) we actually had a yummy meal and a very darling server.

Naturally, they brought crayons and a coloring book for Sally.

Which got me thinking....every restaurant we go to provides brand-new crayons for her.

Why new? She's 3, she has no issues with used, broken, or even wrapper-less crayons. Hmmm..

So as we were asking for the bill, I asked the waitress what they do with the used crayons?

"Oh, we just throw them away."

Hmmmm. Interesting.

Now this is just 1 Outback location, in Castle Rock, Colorado, and how many crayons do you think they throw away each and every month?

No one knows, because they don't count the ones they buy, and I suppose there are some people who take crayons with them. But figure that every kid gets 4 brand-new crayons every time they dine at Outback (or any other number of family-friendly restaurants).

So I got to thinking.

I'm sure there are underprivileged schools and low-budget daycares who would LOVE to have heaps of crayons that had only been used for 10 minutes by just 1 child.

So we asked to see the manager.

Well, at this particular location, the GM is also the owner. How 'bout that?

Very nice gentleman, young guy, maybe early 30s, good looking. Married? I don't know, I'm not looking so I didn't notice! But he was cool and confident, not cocky, you know what I mean?

We got to talking with this guy, who was naturally interested in hearing about our experiences in Australia, seeing as he owns an Outback steakhouse (btw, for you Aussies -- it is an American chain restaurant with an Australian theme. Their drinks are called things like "wallaby darned" and "boomeranger" and they serve grilled steaks, chicken and shrimp.)

We told him about our experiences there, and how impressed we were with the proactive conservation mindset of the Aussies, and that it made us more aware of how much we throw away in the U.S.

And we asked about why they throw away so many perfectly good crayons.

And that's when he told us something shocking.

"Legally, we can't re-use the crayons because they've come into contact with human hands."

Now I don't know about you, but I don't normally think of crayons as being "sterile." If my kid was coloring in a hospital, well, then yeah, I'd want her to have unused crayons (or we just use our own. Even my Coach handbag is not without a 4-pack of Crayolas.) But in a restaurant??? The litigious nature of our society is getting out of control.

So we asked him if he would be willing to let us collect their used crayons, and bring them down to the schools in Mexico, since we vacation there at least twice a year.

He was very receptive of the idea (like I said, a genuinely nice guy) but as is typical of American industry, he's got to check with the administrative bureaucrats at Outback Headquarters. In other words, their legal department has to ascertain whether or not they think they'll get sued by letting me take their crayons.

So we'll see how it turns out, and you can BET I'll keep you posted.

But the whole idea got me thinking -- there's more than just an Outback steakhouse in Castle Rock -- there's Red Robin, there's Denny's, there's Village Inn, there's Black Eyed Pea, Applebee's, Chili's, Waffle House, and I could go on and on.

And no matter where YOU live in the U.S., there's at least ONE family-friendly restaurant in your area.

Now, I realize that you may not go to Mexico twice a year like I do. But I'll bet you DO have inner-city or underprivileged areas not far from where you live. Places like schools and daycares where they don't have enough of the resources they need, or they're pinching pennies to get what they require. And I'll bet they'd be delighted to receive a mountain of crayons for their students -- for FREE.

Will you help me color the world?

Besides providing children with one of the essentials of learning -- crayons provide color, art, creativity, drawing, tracing, outlining, motor skill development, writing skills, focus, and much more -- you'll also be helping save the planet.

I mean, really, can you just imagine how many crayons must already be in our landfills?

YOU can do something!

Now this whole idea has just come to me tonight, so even though I know it can be done across the U.S. (and if you live in another country where crayons are thrown away for the same silly reason, please feel free to participate.) I don't really know how.

So if you have ideas, or you are willing to coordinate efforts to recycle crayons where YOU live, the please post a comment here and I will keep everyone posted.

Right now, you could be in 1 of 3 places. You might be thinking:

1 - Amy you are wacko. It's just a few crayons, really. What's the big deal? You're a sweet girl, but I don't really think what you're doing will make a difference.

2 - Amy this is a great idea. You go girl!

3 - Amy you are a frickin' visionary. I want to get involved, how can I help?

(there's actually a 4th group who thinks "who gives a crap?" but I figure they stopped reading several paragraphs ago, so forget about those guys)

If you find yourself in group 1 (which is fine -- wherever you are right now is perfect, really), then consider this:

- any chronic situation is the sum of countless tiny actions.

- for example, no one gets obese overnight. You don't fall asleep weighing 120 lbs and wake up weighing 220 lbs. No, obesity is the grand summation of countless tiny actions - an extra helping here, extra sweets there, 3 sodas a day for 10 years, taking an elevator instead of the stairs 4 times a day, 5 days a week for 12 years, etc. It's the result of millions of quantum choices.

- if it took millions of tiny choices and decisions by you and millions of other people across the U.S. to create all this trash in the first place, how exactly can the situation turn around? By having lots of people make DIFFERENT tiny choices and decisions starting NOW.

- if you don't have the capacity to impact millions of people (in other words, if your name isn't Oprah) who DO you have the capacity to affect? Well, let's see...there's YOU

- if not you, then who? and if not now, when?

Now if you find yourself in category 2 (sounds great, go for it Amy) then I can use your brainpower to help me figure out how to get things rolling on a national level. So post your comments here and let's get this puppy going.

But if you are as fired up about this as I am, and you are in category 3, then email me immediately at amy @ newsuccess.org (don't copy and paste that address - I put spaces in to foil the spam email harvesters) and let me know you want to help out in your area, and we'll get cranking on this.

Let's color the world, people!!

Your QoD: Do you find yourself wanting to help out, but not wanting to commit without knowing what's involved? If you said yes, where else in your life can you see that you hesitate for fear of the unknown? What is the impact of your cautious nature?

What would happen if you just said YES and took the leap, trusting that it would all work out?

Go for it!

p.s. by request, I did run a spellcheck before I posted this msg !