Indiscriminate use of Plastics

Why not take your own reusable dishes or containers if you really care about these issues? I do. I carry around a tuperware container for food, a glass bottle for fresh soya milk, a pair of nice wooden chopsticks and a reusable shopping bag almost everyday.

Lots of people all over the world do the same too. But a new sickness for instant gratification and convienience has been quickly invading the world.

“It’s easy to point your finger at a problem, but if you are seeking a solution, point your finger at yourself.”

Fool, I think you mean well and if everyone carried around their own reusable stuff, it might make a little difference. However I think giving all the responsibility for protecting the environment to individuals is unworkable.

This is a consumer-driven society, and there’s very little we can do (short of radical worldwide revolution) to change this. Consumers want what is most convenient to them, and for the vast majority of people their concern for the environment is not going to outweigh the convenience of carrying around, eating utensils, plates, bags bowls and buckets all day just because irresponsible companies use masses of plastics to package their products whilst governments sit idly by and let them.

Environmentalism has to be a co-operative effort between, government, industry and individual. Steps need to be taken at the points of production, distribution, sale, and consumption and all of it overseen and regulated by the government.

We need some radical solutions. Who pays for the costs of recycling or sustainable garbage disposal now? THe consumers and the government. What if industry was made to pay for the disposal of all the goods used int he production, distribution and sale of their goods?

It just seems to me that at the momenteveryone seems to be pointing at the individual to save the environment, but I htink government and industry can do a lot more and have to bear the most responsibility.

Bri

So it’s pass the buck is it?

“It is easy to point your finger at a problem, but if you are seeking a sloution, point your finger at yourself”

No it’s not pass the buck at all. It’s share the responsibility rather than making those who can do the least (the consumers) shoulder all the burden. The ones who are making the pollutants have to do some work to and so does the government, because that’s part of their responsibility.

Bri

Yes Bu Lai En, I do agree that the responsibility must be shared, but dissagree that the consumers can do the least.

We must not defer our own responsibility as this is an infantile reponse: Industry (the provider - mother) and Government (the rule maker - father) will take care of everything, and I (the individual - baby) need not worry!

Eventually babies grow up and stop soiling themselves and expecting mommy and daddy to clean it up. Eventually we become more mature, and learn to manage our wastes more responsibly.

Or do we really? Okay, so we learn to stop soiling ourselves. But as we get older do we not generate far more crap than we ever did as a baby? And do we ever grow out of the hope that mommy and daddy will clean things up and make everything better?

Can we now grow-up to another, higher level, where each of us accepts total responsibility for the results of our lifestyle? And can we now learn to curb our desire and consumption in order to minimize our impact on the world?

That day will come - when we all grow-up and learn to act more responsibly - as it certainly must in order for the world to survive. But why defer and wait for another time? Forget about mommy and daddy! You’re on your own now! Grow up and act responsibly! The future can be now.

This message has been edited by the moderators…

Yeah, I agree it’s partially our weakness for wanting convenience, but actually our whole system, from the way most people work to the way we shop and go to and fro is all in direct opposition to what makes “sense”…

how do you get to work every day…have you always done everything you could to protect the environment…do you use electricity in your home?

Hey, even burning candles has environmental consequences…so, please don’t be so holy if you don’t REALLY have all the answers for everything.


A word from the moderators: DMPP: Telling people to -ahem- “probe their body orifices” is not acceptable dialogue. Tone it down or your posts will be deleted. We are not editors - we do not have time to pore through your prattle trying to separate what is merely inane blather from what might consititute obscene language.

Read on if you’re not satisfied:
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Ok, sorry! Not trying to break the rules, just havin’ fun! Geez, but you don’t have to get personal about my posts and writing style…relax, guys/girls!

Poop! Did you poo poo your dummy? Oooooops! It seems that what I wrote above does not apply to all, or many of us, yet.

Most of the people in this world do not use a new vinyl bag for every single purchase, do not drink bottles water, do not use electricty very much, do not use computers. But they DO conserve resources, recycle as much as possible and compost almost all organic waste. Always remember that the Western (or Northern or what have you call it) way of life is a miniority one on this world of ours. And therein lies the tragedy, that only 20% of us are screwing up everything for everyone else.

By the way, I swam to Taiwan, walk around barefoot, eat only peaches, drink only the dew of morning mist and sleep in the dark.

I disagree that consumers can do as much or more than industyr and government to help the environment. Speaking for the industrialised ‘developed’ world, we live in a consumerist system, which has reached a level where it is all but impossible to opt out of.

Now some consumer choice theory would say that as environmental awreness grows consumers will exercise their consumer choice and, for example, choose to buy products with less packaging. It jsut doesn’t work that way. If you plotted a graph of levels of environmental awareness against amounts of packaging in products, I’m sure they would both be rising, whereas if the consumer choice theory was true the one should rise as the other falls.

So what can consumers do. In the city I come from they can’t recycle, because there are no companies collecting recyclables, because it’s uneconomic and not subsidised by the government. It is very difficult in our society to buy goods with minimal or no packaging. The best we can do is pressure industry and government to do something and then cooperate if they actually do some good.

What can industry do? It could pay to offset the costs to the enviroment of everything they produce. This would really help a lot. Really industry does almost nothing at the moment, and they’re the ones making all this plastic and then not disposing of it.

What can government do? They can set up recycling infrastrucutre to make it easy for the consumers to play their part. They can make sure that consumers have easy access to environmental alternatives. They can subsidise recycling and offer incentives to companies that use enviromentally friendly practices.

Personally I think that there are a few individuals that are doing something about the environmet, but government is doing very little and industry nothing. I believe that many many more individuals would do something if government and industry played their part. I am by no means advocating that the latter two become mummy and daddy and do everything for us, I never said that and was always clear that it has to be acooperative asset. What I mean is that it’s time government and industry recognise that something has to be done, that there are people out there with the will to do something and that they should shoulder their share of the burden.

Bri

You know, I’m really interested in these topics, but this circular argument is becoming tiresome.

Yes I agree that responsibility must be shared. But shared does not mean defered. There are a million potential consumers for every single producer. The buck stops here, with me, and whoever else tries to be responsible.

If you are looking to point your finger outward in order to justify your lifestyle, rest content to part of the filthy twenty percent that are poisoning the world. But please do not try to have it both ways. Either one is responsible or they are not. You decide.

“Sentiment without action is the death of the soul.”

GOAT gravedig (recycling feels good) and fill with plastic