Our "throw away" society...

I was passing by the closed "Joe's crab shack" a couple of days and noticed they were tearing down the building. The structure was less than five years old, and it was disheartening to see the construction detritus laying in piles: Expensive wood beams, steel plumbing, galvanized duct work, and new looking insulation. The building was built to the rigors of code, only to be torn down.

It made me think of this Jiffy Lube... They're widening the road Jiffy Lube was situated on, and the old building didn't meet the set back requirements mandated by the city. The old Jiffy Lube (which was a new building) was torn down and a new Jiffy Lube was erected no more than 15ft. away from the old building site. Tear down and rebuild just to meet set back requirements. How F-ing wasteful.

Which made me think of the freeway... A couple of years ago, steel cables were erected in the median like these.

They were supposed to keep run away cars from swerving into oncoming traffic. They did a great job. Less than a year after miles of this cable was constructed, it was all torn down and this concrete barrier was erected instead. I had heard that the government had allotted highway funds for Utah. If the state didn't use the allotted funds, the money would go to another state. Even though it wasn't needed, the state decided to tear out all the new cable and replace it with concrete barriers to they could use up the funds.

If the govt. officials just thought a little more altruistically, maybe the highway funds slated for Utah could have been used to improve schools in California.

I'm embarassed by our throw away society at times. How wasteful can we be?