Landfills.

Environmentalism can be motivated by many factors.  Earlier on, my primary motivating factor in the changes I was making was my own health.  This led me to start eating less processed, more organic, whole foods.  I also started trying to find natural products such as shampoos, conditioners, deodorants, etc., because I didn't want my skin coming in contact with harmful (or questionable) chemicals.  I figured in a hundred years we will know more than we know now and we may find out that some of the chemicals in such products are harmful. 

In a sudden turn of events, I became very aware of something that I had been conscious of, but not focused on, for quite some time: landfills.  I have been to landfills a couple times in the past, but for some reason the thought of a giant rotting garbage dump didn't really affect me.  This seems to be a pattern with me: I am oblivious to an issue until something just brings home to me the impact of my behaviour and then I become very passionate about changing it.  For the majority of my life, I considered landfills to be normal and acceptable.  Then I came across a photo of the carcasses of dead Albatrosses from Midway Island, which is near a place in the Pacific Ocean where there is a huge floating collection of garbage.  This really made me question what I considered "normal".  The Pacific Trash Gyre, also known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, or the Pacific Trash Vortex, is a very sad testament to our inability as a species to have any consideration for our planet and its other inhabitants.  It's not a landfill, but they both arise from the same attitude and lack of regard for the planet and the species which we affect.