How is it that, over the years, plastic has been welcomed into every aspect of our daily lives without us pausing to consider its destructive implications for the environment?
From early morning, when we squeeze toothpaste from a plastic tube onto the plastic bristles of a plastic tooth-brush, our days are
plastic-dominated.
I'm typing this on a plastic keyboard, a plastic phone sits beside me, whilst, on the table, a magazine that arrived this morning is wrapped in plastic clingfilm. As for the plastic containers in the kitchen, and the milk in its plastic bottle, stored in a largely plastic refrigerator . . . I'm sure you can see what I mean.But what's struck me is not just the proliferation of plastic, but the way plastic, and a surfeit of packaging, has influenced our way of thinking . . . unconsciously, we now feel we live in a disposable world.
We're a throw-away society, and we never stop to question this state of affairs.
Water-bottles, tea-bags, coffee-mugs and sweet-wrappers, we throw them away as though they don't matter. But they do matter because that's precisely what they are. They are matter . . . a man-made form of matter which is hostile to the environment.If we did stop to think about our actions, we'd realise something else . . . namely that you can't just throw something away. The discarded object hasn't disappeared. It is now litter on the street, or an unwanted element in the soil As unpleasant evidence of one of our least attractive habits, look at the blobs of chewing-gum splattered over the urban pavements . . . it's a highly-adhesive gum that has no intention of quietly melting away.
Yes, we can use a litter-bag for disposable items. And, yes, the council will collect what we discard. But it still ends up accumulating in a tip, where only a percentage is recycled. It's a sobering thought that human beings are the only life form on the planet that constantly create damaging and destructive rubbish.
Nor does this end with physical rubbish. Disposable rubbish has entered the mental realm. Have you noticed how we are growing more and more partial to throw-away remarks?
It's as though we ponder less, react more quickly, and dispose of our views with less consideration as to the outcome.
The comments we post on social media are rather like our throw-away wrappers.
We think we've discarded them, only to discover that they frequently leave unintended damage in their wake.
So, what can be done? Surely it's not too late to add another New Year resolution.
How about resolving to acknowledge the precious nature of every component of the natural world?Let's promise to value, treasure and conserve all that we handle in our daily lives. Let's dispense with as much plastic as we can, re-use our water-bottles and darn our socks .
As for those throw-away remarks, the ones that we scatter so thoughtlessly . . . didn't someone once say that silence is golden?
Perhaps that's my cue to depart!
