Hands up who remembers being told not to waste paper and particularly, as a shopper, not to use environmentally unfriendly paper bags and old-fashioned paper carrier bags in order to ‘save a tree’?
The more environmentally friendly alternative that was in response developed was those thin clear plastic bags that are a bugger to open and thin blue plastic carrier bags that seldom get home handles intact. Few shoppers thought to wonder what these new bags were made of. Any enquiring minds, on learning that petroleum was involved, would have been unconcerned since in the 1970s the UK had begun to be an oil producer itself and many people still had coal fires and burnt quite a bit of their own domestic rubbish helping to keep the house warm. (The hours of fun we had at Christmas melting dimpled plastic chocolate box inserts in front of the fire, coal, gas or electric, into sheets of smooth plastic. Innocent times indeed, and no one knew of anyone who’d been scarred for life by a Milk Tray, Weekend or Black Magic injury). The rest of the rubbish went into a metal dustbin normally kept out of sight in the back yard or if posh in the garden and this was collected and emptied plus miraculously returned once a week. No questions were asked about the contents of one’s dustbin in those halcyon days nor was anyone particularly concerned to know where their removed rubbish actually went to. Happy Innocent Days, how soon they were ripped away!
Now we’re told not only to ‘save trees’ but to plant more, even if of the wrong variety or taking up valuable agricultural land or simply left to die uncared for. But not for mere paper production – oh no – it’s to offset our evil carbon emissions. (Airlines clearly misunderstand their customers’ priorities, namely the quickest, cheapest and least hassle-inducing journey from A to B available, and that the majority of passengers take no great pride or pleasure in the virtue signalling assurances that their carbon is being offset on their behalf by the altruistic company.)
I’ve yet to see my own, or anyone else’s, carbon emission and so still picture it as a bad case of the runs with black carbon ‘sugar cubes’ dropping uncontrollably from a certain orifice. As this by-product of modern life is though not the actual black stuff itself, but instead carbon dioxide gas which is still only present in tiny quantities in the atmosphere (and is essential for life on Earth) then let’s have more of it not less!
Now, returning to the subject of ‘Let’s All Go Green’, surprisingly I’m all for it – but it has nothing to do with so called ‘fossil fuels’ (again I picture these as gloop made by crushing the ammonites and trilobites and ‘devil’s toe nails’ that aren’t quite up to Geological Museum display standards). My ‘Go Green’ Campaign (although the term Green in modern terminology is I fear now easily confused with strikingly similar Nazi or Commie labels) involves sustainability, yes really, and the minimisation of pollution via the elimination of unnecessary waste. The acronym isn’t catchy I freely admit.
All glass bottles ought (although given the choice I’d prefer decent booze, especially wine, in lightweight plastic or cardboard cartons to help prevent my aching arm muscles carrying heavy glass bottles home, OK sometimes only to the nearest park bench in emergencies) to be returnable for refilling. Not crushing, melting and recasting as this really does waste fuel, fossil or otherwise, plus there isn’t a shortage of sand. I’m not saying that a 5p or 10p return scheme would be any inducement to lug empty bottles anywhere these days and I imagine today’s kids wouldn’t be remotely interested in collecting empty bottles, loading them on a homemade ‘bogey’ (it’s a Yorkshire thing, don’t ask) and taking them back to the shop, pub or off-licence to supplement their pocket money – unless it’s somehow reconfigured as a computer game version that can be enjoyed on a mobile ‘phone.
Glass bottles (what happened to all those communal clear, brown and green collection bank modules?) aren’t though my prime concern.
What pisses me off is passing the buck for recycling all types of packaging from the actual product producer/retailer onto the poor consumer and of course always cheered on by a hyper efficient Local Authority with a Council Tax-paying-customer-friendly-focussed ever expanding range of mandatory multiple differently coloured wheelie bins. Also, strict rules about what can or can’t go into each bin plus the unbeatable fun to be had, usually late at night, remembering which days once a fortnight each bin needs to be lugged into the street, at what time, and then if not left unemptied or stolen/set on fire, lugged back again. Heaven help you if you don’t have room for several wheelie bins or the physical strength to move heavy full bins about.
Why, oh why does every frozen or chilled food product these days seem to come in a plastic bag INSIDE a cardboard box? Why can’t either labels be simply stuck to the plastic bags themselves or better still point of sale information provided and displayed giving all the ‘essential’ information about product x clearly visible inside the bag (which information, incidentally, is typically now so extensive and in such tiny lettering on the outer cardboard box that it’s virtually unreadable anyway and let’s face it only of interest to the growing ‘food intolerance’ fad fraternity and to strict vegetarians or vegans who shouldn’t be looking at anything that isn’t in an unpackaged natural vegetable shape anyway).
Even worse of course is the excess packaging that online orders and all consumer electricals routinely come with – how do they think the buyer is either going to find somewhere large enough to store it in case a return is necessary or alternatively to dispose of acres of cardboard and bushels of polystyrene?
Now I’m often told that my ideas are unrealistic because products can’t be stacked for either transport or display purposes unless boxed and anything without protective packaging would be damaged in transit. It never seems to occur to product producers, goods transporters or especially Local Authorities aka bin person collection facilitators aka recycling enforcement personnel handlers that they have the slightest responsibility for thinking of, encouraging or even mandating better ways of providing goods that don’t burden the paying end user with dealing with all the unnecessary wasteful packaging. The National or Devolved Governments though have far more important things to pay homage to, than dirtying their already grubby hands with such mundane pleb concerns as waste management.
Sometimes, once I’ve paid at the checkout and I’m feeling particularly bolshy I then unbox all my purchases, pack them into my bags and leave the empty boxes for the shop to dispose of. PS I only do this in larger shops which have space between the checkouts and the exit doors. If everyone followed my lead then I think retailers might start to take more of an interest in their sale goods’ packaging? And if consumers were responsible for generating less waste at home, then Council Taxes would surely be reduced? Unfortunately, as Captain Mainwaring frequently said to Corporal Jones “I think we’re in the realms of fantasy here”.
Martin Rispin has had a career in many different sectors, most lately in the fields of English Tourism and Heritage based Urban Regeneration. He now lives, retired, in Kingston upon Hull.
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