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I am the problem
“If you aren’t part of the solution, you are part of the problem.” Well, heck, when I first heard that phrase I didn’t think the concept could possibly apply to me, unless I wanted it to apply to me. In other words, if I didn’t acknowledge there was a problem I couldn’t possibly be a part of it, right? I was pretty naive, or just plain stupid. Maybe both. For example, the fairly recent stories about the “plastic drinking straw crisis” comes to mind. Who among us knew drinking straws were a problem? I thought cigarette butts and dog poop on the sidewalk were problems, but drinking straws? What the H E double hockey sticks is this all about? And then?
Well, and then I began to think about what the drinking straw story was really about. While deflated helium balloons were much more visible on a beach than plastic straws, people like me could “be a part of the solution” by saying “I never buy helium balloons”. If I didn’t buy helium balloons, it wasn’t my problem. But drinking straws, there’s something we all use. The straws just represented the bigger problem, including the balloons. I had a moment, or maybe a month of moments, and then I began to pay attention. The reality started to sink in while visiting our youngest kid, in Manitoba. She told me about her move to make her life as free of plastics as possible. Wait a minute. She wasn’t just yakking about straws. She was talking about cling film and flimsy food storage containers and styrofoam meat trays and shampoo bottles and dish detergent bottles. My kid was out to save the world from her flat in Manitoba. Between discussions about the texture of my newborn baby grandson’s poops, spit-ups and snot, I listened as she (more or less) laid the blame for our plastic dependency squarely at the feet of my generation. And she was on-the-money. I wanted to protest but I was part of the generation who wanted plastic convenience. I didn’t want dried out loaves of bread and jumped for joy when the bakery giants introduced plastic bags. I squealed with delight when dairies moved milk products from glass bottles to waxed paper containers to plastic bags. I just needed to buy a plastic pitcher to hold my plastic milk bags and a plastic cutter to slice the bag open. I even celebrated the arrival of styrofoam trays with absorbent pads that cradled my pork chops and chicken breasts. No more butcher paper. My meat and poultry purchase were, also, lovingly wrapped with a thin layer of un-recyclable cling film. Cling film and kitschy little containers now swaddled the produce I selected on my forays into the grocery store. No loose tomatoes rolling around in the trunk of my car. No more stray onions or smelly garlic hiding under my spare tire. Yippee. The longer the kid and I talked about the plastic problem, the more I realized how much our lives have been impacted by the convenience of (C2H4)n.
When I returned to our home in the County, I noticed just how much I had embraced the world plastic. It was as if my retirement was funded by the PVC market. Almost every product I purchased was contained inside plastic, wrapped in plastic or made of plastic. I have a serious job ahead of me. The straws are only the tip of the iceberg, so to speak. I can slurp a cold drink without a straw or, if I remember, I can use my reusable straws. I must also remember to bring my own drink containers and reusable utensils when I purchase to-go foods. I now try to remember to bring my own produce bags to the grocery store and, as much as possible, avoid buying meat that has been uber-wrapped with plastics. And, I need to do more reading about where the plastics are hiding in my life. It has occurred to me that blue bins may be wonderful, but my aim should be to need them less and less. Oh my. Life just got even more interesting.
My generation has created a terrible legacy. We are part of the problem. According to Jeb Berrier, in the movie Bag It, “Think about it. Why would you make something that you’re going to use for a few minutes out of a material that’s basically going to last forever, and you’re just going to throw it away. What’s up with that?” Indeed, what’s up with that?
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