Contributed by M.P. Crawford
I find myself chuckling to myself many times over a not-so-funny matter: the climate crisis and humanity's complacency and the fact that I thrive on causes... But, to clarify, I will scale the scenario down a bit and focus on the "paper or plastic" dilemma and the small-scale war my family has waged against what that little phrase represents. Many months ago my daughter and I declared a two-woman campaign at our local food market known for its proliferation of senior citizens and aging upper middle-class "Baby Boomers". Armed with cloth bags pilfered from a much more globally-conscious food store chain we set our sights on changing the world one person at a time. I thought I was really making an impression, my various and sundry organically-derived bags languishing on the conveyer belt along side my purchases and my staunch views on ridding the Earth of pesky plastic bags and their cousins, the tree-depriving paper variety. Well what to my eyes did I see, none other than the elderly gent behind me in line requesting a cloth bag. YEAH! VICTORY! But, wait, not so fast... yes, he purchased one bag but no he did not use it. He fell under the spell of the "paper or plastic" mantra and requested his new earth-friendly bag be placed in the sinister blue villian. Many more instances of seeming defeat in this war have been witnessed by this persistent crusader.
Fast-forward two months: Same store. Same socio-economic mix. Different attitude? Yes!, albeit a tentative one. Now there are rows of the recycling cloth bags lining each check-out aisle. Before there was only one stand for the same. The check-out personnel, in particular the young ones, are especially helpful with packing the cloth bags ("It's not too heavy for you, is it?") and there is definitely an increaed amount of customers using at least one non-plastic/paper bag for their purchases. Is this learning by example? Are the rhetorical challenges and exhortations from the activists making inroads? Or, are we disgusted by a view of blue plastic "leaves" swaying from sickened trees and clogging the drains to our Bay? Perhaps the answers are none of these OR all of the above. Only time and trees and birds and fishes will tell... And this Bag Lady will continue to wage her "war" for the world!
I find myself chuckling to myself many times over a not-so-funny matter: the climate crisis and humanity's complacency and the fact that I thrive on causes... But, to clarify, I will scale the scenario down a bit and focus on the "paper or plastic" dilemma and the small-scale war my family has waged against what that little phrase represents. Many months ago my daughter and I declared a two-woman campaign at our local food market known for its proliferation of senior citizens and aging upper middle-class "Baby Boomers". Armed with cloth bags pilfered from a much more globally-conscious food store chain we set our sights on changing the world one person at a time. I thought I was really making an impression, my various and sundry organically-derived bags languishing on the conveyer belt along side my purchases and my staunch views on ridding the Earth of pesky plastic bags and their cousins, the tree-depriving paper variety. Well what to my eyes did I see, none other than the elderly gent behind me in line requesting a cloth bag. YEAH! VICTORY! But, wait, not so fast... yes, he purchased one bag but no he did not use it. He fell under the spell of the "paper or plastic" mantra and requested his new earth-friendly bag be placed in the sinister blue villian. Many more instances of seeming defeat in this war have been witnessed by this persistent crusader.
Fast-forward two months: Same store. Same socio-economic mix. Different attitude? Yes!, albeit a tentative one. Now there are rows of the recycling cloth bags lining each check-out aisle. Before there was only one stand for the same. The check-out personnel, in particular the young ones, are especially helpful with packing the cloth bags ("It's not too heavy for you, is it?") and there is definitely an increaed amount of customers using at least one non-plastic/paper bag for their purchases. Is this learning by example? Are the rhetorical challenges and exhortations from the activists making inroads? Or, are we disgusted by a view of blue plastic "leaves" swaying from sickened trees and clogging the drains to our Bay? Perhaps the answers are none of these OR all of the above. Only time and trees and birds and fishes will tell... And this Bag Lady will continue to wage her "war" for the world!
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2 comments:
my daughter stuffed cloth bags in both our cars... now i have to train myself to take them into the stores.... it is too bad all clerks put even the tiniest purchase into a bag asap.... then look at me like i am insane when i give their bag back to then .
Way to go Carla. So what if we're insane? The Earth still oves us!
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