I'll admit, I haven't watched them all. But tonight I did watch The Story of Solutions. To sum up, it basically expressed the need for us to find solutions that change the way we think about stuff rather than simply make it seem like we're helping.
Her main example was a rewards program for recycling versus petitioning to ban the plastic bag. The former encourages more consumerism for a minor dent in the garbage that reaches the landfill. The latter stops garbage at its beginning so there is no chance for it to end up in the landfill at all, or on the ground, or in our oceans.
This video sparked up quite the conversation between myself and my husband. He feels that taking away someone's right to CHOOSE whether or not to take a bag is immoral. And my standpoint is that a person should be educated on the fact that that choice doesn't stop after they put their groceries away. It affects everyone on the planet. And not just today but for many many many generations to come. I feel it would be immoral to make the choice that would harm others. So why make that choice available?
It was quite a conversation. And I believe conversations like this are great! Even if they don't always end in agreement, it gets people thinking about the choices they make.
When we think about plastic bags (and yes, we use cloth bags for shopping and now we have them will continue to use them), we need to consider the cost and effect on the environment from making the cloth bags. They're actually more detrimental, same as the low-energy light bulbs and other previously thought-to-be environmentally friendly actions. Too often the whole story isn't told when 'green' people get on their bandwagon.
ReplyDeleteThe manufactured bags are not as environmentally friendly as they are touted to be. But we have to start somewhere. Bags are only a part of the problem. It's consumerism in general that is the problem. I don't think it's immoral to remove the choice of plastic bags over bring your own. Although, we've been regulated to death and this could be considered another regulation. It's a very tricky situation. I, however, will continue to avoid plastic bags as much as possible. I do with they would bring back paper bags, though.
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