And it is not difficult, if one starts with one's own, immediate environment

Amen....Amen! But as I said before, we are slow learners! I fear for what our Grandchildren and Great-Grands are inherieting from us. Plastic?

Lilo; you nailed it.
The kids see it and grow up passing it on to the next generation.

I was so impressed after the Japanese tsunami how quickly they came together as communities, how quickly they were taking care of each other and TENDING TO THE CHILDREN---small livable spots in the middle of all that horror---because they worked together with the same goals in mind.

Thank you, Mwheel.

That is a nice quote and I think a lot of us would agree.
However, that's easier said than done.
I was visiting some tin mines in Malaysia some thirty years ago and all I saw was huge holes in the earth where they had been mining. The quote below says that there were 50 working mines in "1963-64". By the time I visited there were only open wounds in the earth and ghost towns.

SELANGOR

In the Klang Valley, i.e. Kuala Lumpur and parts of Selangor, the Lower Palaeozoic sediments are almost entirely surrounded by Mesozoic tin-bearing granites. The limestones and dolomites which form the upper part of the succession underlie extensive alluvial flats, on which the local tin mining was concentrated. The limestone hill of Batu Caves is the only natural exposure in the Kuala Lumpur area. Otherwise exposures of limestone are only found in open cast hydraulic tin mines. There were 50 working mines in 1963-64. During mining the overlying alluvium was removed and was mostly between 10-60 feet thick. After the pit was flooded or filled in. The Kuala Lumpur limestone is estimated to be 6000 feet thick, and contain fossils of the Middle or Upper Silurian age (Gobbett 1963).

This week has been in agreement with my feelings about the subject mater. Good quotes.