Ah, if only what's his name from the graduate were here today to illuminate us with the next big deal...Well maybe not. My humble opinion is that plastics are definitely something to which the precautionary principle should be applied. There are definite advantages - I admit I enjoy my GoreTex ski jacket as much as the next person, but I can live without the GoreTex dental floss. I think that if the European Union can live without BPA, we can too. And, my other half trained me long ago to carry my own bags to the grocery store to live without both the lightweight single use grocery bags (that made the news recently vis a vis Oregon legislation to ban them) or those nice brown paper bags (which have seen many second lives in my house).
Plastic is everywhere, true. It makes things cheap in the cost sense of manufacturing and hence, purchase. But does it also make things cheap in the value sense? Do I value an item more because I paid less for it? I don't think I do - in fact, I think often times I value it less if it didn't cost me much. It becomes a throwaway.
Now, I realize that I'm not talking anything new here, and I feel somewhat as though I am railing against a huge machine that is implacable in its desire to move ahead with profits and more profits at our expense. And I realize that I am quite hypocritical because I sit here on my enlarging behind typing this on an Apple computer made largely of plastic and drinking coffee out of a travel mug encased in plastic...
How did our society get to this point where we are so completely dependent on oil? Not just to run our cars and our industry, but for our entertainment (TVs, CDs, DVDs, cameras, naugahyde couches...), our food (plastic lined cans, bottles, keg taps (!)...), our housing (PVC pipes, vinyl siding and windows, Tyvek...), our life (IV drips, catheters (no comment), the baggies that carry blood when you donate (have you donated?). How amazingly insidious it seems to have these lines of plastic encircling all our lives and we are, mostly, totally unaware of how dependent we have become on what is, mostly, an import to our economy.
When I look at the little list I spat out above, I have to think ask which are the truly necessary? Obviously beer taps, but for only for reasons of social good. But really, folks. Between hybrid vehicle technology*, renewable energy technology**, and conservation techniques***, we have the technological wherewithal to be completely unconcerned about what happens in the middle east, apart from wanting to be the good fairy of democracy.
* leaving aside the latest news of consumer protection falling prey to corporate greed
**has anybody flown over LA or San Francisco lately? All those huge big box warehouses/industrial buildings with huge flat roofs in the sunshine with huge air conditioning units because the building gains so much heat?
*** do we really need to use so freaking much plastic, energy and gas to begin with?
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