After watching this (watch it. Like, now) particulary well-made and enlighting flash movie a few weeks ago, not that I hadn’t thought about our wasteful nature as a species before [certainly not], I started observing how careless people are when it comes to plastic and especially packing and bags. I tried counting how many plastic bags I received in one day, and the number was somehow higher than my purchases in the same day. I recently read that 11.000.000 plastic bags (I have no idea about their mean size) are used each day in Greece alone. Using this number of bags you’d be able to encircle the earth many times. This figure is enormous, just imagine the kind of volume 11.000.000 full plastic bags can take, for a lot of those are used for garbage disposal purposes after shopping with them. Plastic does not biodegrade, so if anything is within the bag that actually does, it will not since it will stay in the bag. That breaks the circle of carbon, one of the environment’s most important bases of structure. You get plastic bags everywhere, just try to think of ONE shop that doesn’t use them. If you did manage to think of one, congratulations, but it is the exception that proves this rule. It would be nice if we started seeing more reuseable bags people can buy or even paper bags, which are recyclable. But of course there IS no way to recycle paper in Mytilini. But that’s a different story.
Secondly, there’s just so much stuff when it comes to packages apart from the product. I opened the box my motherboard came in and every little accessory and thingie came in its own plastic wrapping or bag. And every accessory and every part I got had its own little plastic packages and bags. And every thing you ever buy has its own little plastic package that won’t melt before your grandchildren’s grandchildren write down their wills. It’s pathetic. The world is filling with more and more plastic every day. What are we going to do with all the stuff? Oceans are filling with it, land is, our homes are… It’s just crazy. I really hope that at some point there will be a collective realisation of how wasteful it is to use plastic wrappings, bags or just plastics in general in such quantities…
Hey!
Well for a start, you can begin by not taking a plastic bag wherever you go. Surely you do not need all that are given to you in one day.
Secondly and that I think is what we are not used of mostly, carry a cloth (reusable) bag wherever.
Or if you do not have one of these, hell get a plastic bag and use it till it rips.
As for product packages, try to choose products that come with the least packaging needed to recieve a safe product. To be honest I would like my m/b and general pc equipment to come in protected packages. But I am sure I do not need a plastic wrap for 4 bottles of chocolate milk 🙂
Plastic is cheap, it’s lightweight and can take countless forms… These are the main reasons that is so popular…
What to do with it? Just burn it down, destroy the ozone layer, let the sun do the job and destroy the planet! It’s going to happen anyway, why not speed things up a little?
I don’t think that whatever people do, even if we’re talking great numbers, will change the way factories, governments, whole economies work… And if they finally change, it’ll be already late. Pessimistic? Realistic?
It’s NOT going to happen necessarily. It’s never too late. Would you prefer a dystopia on earth or a slightly warmer planet as an end result? Please don’t act as if it’s none of your business…
It IS my business, OUR business to be exact… I just believe that when people understand it will be too late. That does not mean that I’ll start destroying the planet myself, I still do what I can and support recycling and the use of alternative energy sources.
Well as far as using less plastic everyday yes it can change based on how much we consume it and not by any government or factory.
By consuming less plastic, lets say not getting tons of plastic bags, a super market will buy less bags and the factory creating them will eventually have to make less because they are not selling.
I agree that lets say on the matter of energy we have got to be laughing that we can make a difference.
As long as Japan and US deny signing any form of environmental protection aggreement we are so screwed.
As a friend said the answer to everything is South Park: “WE DIDN’T LISTEN!!!!”
It is essential that we all as individuals take measurements starting by our surrounding to expand this healthy “circle” of active citizenship to a greater community, that is the only way of changing things when we are not holding positions of power we are still living and using this place called Earth.. and some good news hopefully will come true soon in Greece! The mayor of Athens along with all super-markets stores have come to an agreement of stopping the use of plastic bags at the stores. This is a pilot program that will be signed at 6 February and the date of start remains! Hopefully it will expand around Greece as soon as the first results come.