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youth of Sydney, whose share accommodation houses used to
be their forum for political reform have been transformed
into despots where at least one individual is leading the
revolt against the plastic bag. The recycling bin that was
once home to the odd bottle top now is systematically sorted
according to colour and character. Is this, however, the
best way forward to achieving harmony with our surroundings?
When
the myriad of people make the transition from fine academic
institutions like the University of Sydney back to their
parents' basement, they generally take with them a profound
weight of social and environmental awareness. Repetitious
monologues on the evils of large corporations, the plight
of the environment, the over'population time bomb, and how
good it is to be gay have indoctrinated this opinion for
the better. However this, coupled with the fuel of socialism
and the typical exuberance of youth has made a trip to the
supermarket not the experience it once was.
These
socially and environmentally aware seem to have directed
their fury toward the plastic bag. Those few remaining individuals
who don't take their Green recycled shopping bag with them
to the supermarket are despised for their callus disregard
for the environment. Even the checkout person, who has been
directly responsible for propagating the plastic bag for
50 years now looks at you with scorn. Personally, while
I'm standing in the checkout queue with my eight items or
less I can actually feel them staring at me, all for not
having some appropriate receptacle to transport my shopping.
As
a result, in my share accommodation house in Newtown, I
currently have  about
30 recycled shopping bags. I have so many because I never
remember to take them when I go shopping. This puts me into
a cold sweat at the checkout so I grab another Green one,
to the relief of my fellow patrons. 30 however, is a lot
of bags and I don't know what to do with them all; There
seems to be no mechanism to recycle them and to be honest,
I now miss the plastic bag.
So
here are the stats, and while statistics can be used to
prove practically everything, they can be taken out of context
to illustrate relative contributions of certain components.
Plastic bags do not consume a large amount of natural or
energy resources, nor are they responsible for any significant
amount of Australia's litter stream. According to Environment
Australia, only 2% of the total plastic used in Australia
are used in plastic bags. Similarly, plastic bags in Australia
are responsible for no more than 2% of total observable
rubbish.
What
were people doing with all their shopping bags that they
would bring home? For me, they were used as garbage bags,
which now, because of my fear of carrying plastic in public,
have been replaced by tough black plastic, and for the remainder
of the bags that I didn't use, I recycled (which is the
essence of the Green shopper). This leads me further.
Another
do'it'yourself environmental vogue is recycling. To minimise
the cost of this practice to the community, we divide
our garbage into cardboard and plastic, glass and aluminium.
This then gets collected separately and returned at what
most would assume to be a minimal cost to the environment.
People make as much effort in this regard as they can,
and it's my belief that this is a good thing.
Lets
take a brief look at recycling. Recycling is appealing
because it takes waste material that would normally go
to land'fill or be burnt, and places it back into the
production cycle, reducing the amount of raw material
required (and therefore simplistically saving the environment).
The process does however, require the allocation of resources:
power must be used to process the recycled material, water
to wash it, trucks to transport it, and few people to
sort it. While the figures vary according to sources and
material, between 20 ' 80% of common household recycling
ends up in land'fill anyway. This is however of little
consequence, as the merits do outweigh the added environmental,
if not economic benefits. The problem with recycling is
that it creates a degree of apathy towards other environmental
issues.
The
apathy referred to is a consequence of leaving society
with a false sense of contribution. Because we go to such
lengths to sort our rubbish, we won't bother to want to
pay that little extra to get renewable energy power, or
we might feel comfortable with buying a bigger car that
sucks more fuel (though perhaps that might be a stretch).
Similarly, the process of curb'side recycling drags our
attention away from what should be more important issues,
such as purchasing products that have less packaging,
larger reusable containers, or products that have high
return in the recycling loop. Very little attention is
paid to these issues nor are any incentives provided to
encourage this.
Is
it the point of this article to have recycling banned
and replaced by another, equally as insignificant component?
Certainly not! The point of this article is to broaden
an outlook into what we are attempting to do by recycling.
In any existence in a developed world, we have an impact
on the environment we live in. The aim of that existence
should be to minimise our impact, our demand for natural
resources, and to pay the true cost of materials according
to their environmental, economic and social impact.
Don't
buy products with excess packaging. Don't buy products
that will not recycle easily. Educate communities and
encourage them to participate. Use renewable electricity
and buy products that were created from renewable electricity.
Read your newspaper online and buy a Green shopping bag
if you must, but leave me my plastic bag. Sure they kill
the odd dolphin, and don't sink as quickly as car tires
but there are better ways to vent your frustration at
the environmentally ignorant.
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