My oldest is a total environmentalist. As with most things, he is intense.
When he was turning eight, he told me that if he could have anything for his birthday he would like one of three things. They were World Peace, Stop World Hunger or a Nintendo DS. Now, coming from most kids it would have been a bamboozle. But from this guy, it was earnest and serious. It almost made me cry. So, as any sucker would, I bought him the DS.
The only gift we gave him that year was the DS. It was expensive and we usually don’t do things like that, so I wanted to make it extra super special. I wrapped it in paper, then put it in a box, wrapped that box, then another and so on. By the time I was done the damn thing was huge and looked nothing like a DS.
We gave it to him and he started the process of unwrapping. He looked more pained with each box. Finally he unearths the awesome and looks at us and says, “Wow. That was a LOT of paper. That is really wasteful, please don’t do that again.”
Uh.
Just tonight he was telling me about watching our neighbors move and the stuff they threw away while sorting. “Mom, you know, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. Do you think I can go raid their garbage before the truck comes tomorrow?”
So first thing this morning he went dumpster diving, at 6 am. I am still debating being horrified or proud.
I Made A Human, Now What? 
LOL I totally laughed at the wasted paper comment!
While you are deciding on being horrified or proud, let me at least say kudos for being Supportive! 🙂 (which, really, is the MOST important thing anyway. )
So I’m dying to know–what treasure did he come up with?
A whole box of stuff, some broken controllers and a broken headset, a wrist protector thing and some random broken pieces of things. He takes things apart and builds new things out of them, so a few years ago we got him a tool set and he has a desk that he spreads out all of his experimental builds. He actually built a light once, connecting the circuit and everything.
Very cool! You’ll have to update later with pictures of stuff your little inventor has created!
He is a serious environmentalist. Good for him for being serious about a serious issue.
Supporting a kids interest goes a long way in helping cement their self confidence. Plus, free stuff is always cool.
I absolutely love this. He sounds like a top bloke!
I think you should definitely be proud, not horrified. In a world where most kids can’t live without 10 gazillion fancy toys, your son sounds like a very cool and and independent kid!