What if every building in NYC or in the surrounding area over a certain number of stories was required to have a bin for used shoes in its lobby or by its front door that was picked up from every month? And if schools, TV stations, or other programs were tasked with teaching people to use the bins?
Someone could even start that with like $600-
just find a $6 plastic bin, 100 buildings willing to participate, a way to recycle or reuse the shoes, and maybe a few people willing to pick up the shoes every month.
In a month or two, you become an inspiration worthy of writing about, leading to more and more similar programs.
And then you'd probably pick up more than 1,200 pairs of shoes every month, if you find the right buildings. You'd just have to research them, get the right connections, find big buildings.
Actually, there's something like that in NYC already for clothing for homeless AIDS patients. But it's not city-wide, just in a lot of places.
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The following is something I wrote to someone I was encouraging to get involved in environmental activism.
I was kind of trying to explain why so many people know about envvironmental problems and know that they're very important issues, yet the problems aren't being sufficiently solved.
What I just chalk it up is that people need to have more initiative. More people need to make doing something about the environment a priority in their lives, and need to encourage their friends and families to do the same things.
And, more people need to start new programs and need to take a chance on trying to implement something new on their own. A greater number of capable people have to stop contenting themselves with just recycling or using the right lightbulbs, and instead need to make what they say about the environment and what they hear about the environment the start of new activism.
Even rich people may be so shy or so hesitant that they think that what seems to them a good idea must be old news, and that they shouldn't even bother opening their mouths about it since there are likely so many other smart people and experts out there thinking about it.
But the environmental problem may be so bad that what we really need is more and more people saying something just to give it a shot, and not more and more people staying silent just in case they are making themselves look bad by saying something.
Geniuses accomplish a lot, but, there is so much good out there to be done that almost-geniuses and their ideas are still useful. They're definitely not people who should be cowardly, who should stifle themselves and keep their ideas under wraps.
Thanks for reading the Save The Environment diary.