If You Knew, Would You Still Do It?

I was doing my morning walk with Yukon this morning, and apparently Tuesday is yard day. There were numerous yard cleaning companies out cleaning up people’s yards.

I saw a guy up on the right, with his sprayer pack on, hosing round up on the 30 little weeds in the front of someone’s yard. It got me thinking, if people knew for sure, 100%, without any doubt that round up causes cancer, would he still do it?

It probably took 30 seconds to spray the weeds. It probably would have taken 3-5 minutes to pull them out. So he is gaining a few minutes to do something else with his day, at the expense of potentially giving himself cancer. Personally, I don’t think it’s a good trade. Is it worth the risk?

By reports published and court cases, I can say, that with high probability, that round up does cause cancer, particularly blood cancer. I unfortunately used it for years, and I believe it was a potential factor in developing myeloma.

Would you still feed your children Cheerios, if you knew it has round up residue on it? I wouldn’t, but unfortunately I didn’t know at the time and we had bowls together as a family.

Bayer, the maker of round up, decided in 2021 to stop selling the product to residential customers for non-professional gardeners because they kept on getting sued and losing to people with lymphoma.

What about all the people (or the dogs) walking through that person’s yard, getting the residue on their shoes and spreading it? I personally went as far as I could to the other side of the street, held my breath and hurried by.

If you knew, would you still do it?

I suppose, the answer would be, maybe? People know that smoking cigarettes gives you lung cancer, heart disease and other problems. They still do it. Mind you, they are addictive and round up isn’t.

NPR, on October 22nd, 2022, reported that 95% of the plastic that American’s consume are NOT recycled, despite being put in recycling containers, they still end up in the landfill.

If you knew that, that piece of plastic that surround the item you just bought was going to the landfill or float around in the ocean, would you have still bought it?

It sure made me pause and think. One would just assume that if it has a recycling symbol on it, it gets recycled. Apparently not. You feel lied to and betrayed.

That’s not even thinking about the health consequences of plastic. I don’t really want to get into that too much, otherwise I’ll be writing forever. I get why it’s so popular. It can be so customizable, cheap and useful. I personally hate plastic. The damn stuff is everywhere and in everything. It feels unavoidable at this point.

The New York Times wrote an article, The Types of Plastics Families Should Avoid. Basically types of plastics, phthalates and bisphenols, are bad news for you and your family. I feel like it’s only a matter of time, for it to come out that the replacement plastic for those types are also bad news for you.

For your health and the health of the planet, please vote with your wallet as much as possible! Buy metal, ceramic and wood when you can!

You can only do the best you can with life. A person has to wonder though, what would you change about your life, only if you knew…..