"Now, during our summer or early fall, it is not so crowded here.
This is our vacation and traveling period. Many people frequent the
seashores and the river beaches on both sides of Amboria."
I asked her, "Do you allow swimming in those rivers with all your city
sewers flushing into them?"
"Oh, no," she replied. "We are allowed to swim only in ocean or river
waters, where there are constant water changes, and not in rivers
where waters are used for drinking, and not, as you Earth people
do, in swimming pools. Moreover, our city sewers from toilets, and
dishwashing machines do not run into our rivers; they are too valuable
to be wasted. The sewerage is run or pumped to large reservoirs with
our garbage. The solid matter is taken out and reprocessed into
fertilizers, and the liquids are pumped to fertilize our deserts and
other lands that need it.
"The clean rain water washing down from roofs of buildings through our
rain spouts goes into another sewer line which spills it far out into
the ocean; the rain water from our streets is absorbed by the soil of
our lawns. We do not allow the pollution of our fresh river drinking
waters or our ocean beaches. Not like on your Earth where many drinking
water sources are simply open sewers, with one town drinking sewage
from the next upriver town. One of the worst offenders is New York. It
empties millions of gallons of inadequately treated sewage into the
harbor each day, consequently it makes swimming at nearby beaches
risky.
"Neither do we allow the pollution of our fresh air, as you Earth
people do with your sewage, gases permeating the air on your streets
and through roof vent pipes. These gases are absorbed by our vacuum
pumps and made use of either as fertilizers or as other elements.
"We have read how you Earth people are made ill from poisonous fumes
that permeate the air in all your manufacturing cities. Los Angeles
with its smog is one of the worst offenders. We know that chimney soot
definitely produces cancer and that asthmatics' hearts give out because
they can scarcely breathe when the air is thick with smog."
I asked her, "Don't the workers at these sewer pumps and fertilizing
plants feel a strong aversion for their work?"
"On the contrary," she answered, "for these services we have a long
waiting list of applicants from our most brilliant young volunteers.
Some of them have made very meritorious achievements, and a few have
reached our rank degrees. A youth is disgraced and ostracized by our
girls who does not put in his full volunteer year working diligently at
what you Earth people call the lowest menial occupations.
"The youth who does the most menial work is the one we admire the most,
and the one we consider most honorable. Why should it be menial, when
after all, it is a mutual human service? We give to each other, to the
healthy and to the sick, service for their comforts. Would you call the
duties of mothers, nurses or physicians menial?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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