I’D Like To Set The Record Straight

[carolegif]

Yesterday, all I heard from lots of young people how us Baby Boomers had ruined the planet, so let’s get this straight. When we and our parents were young, there was no plastic.

Meat and fish were wrapped in grease proof paper and old newspaper, as was butter or lard. Soft fruit and veg, cakes and biscuits were put in paper bags. Root veg covered in soil went straight into a shopping bag, usually made from old curtains (so that’s where Cath Kidston got her idea from!).
‘Dry Goods like flour, sugar, dried fruit etc., was written in a little blue book by my Mum or Nan and taken down to the Maypole or Home and Colonial, to be delivered the following day by a boy on a bike containing the cardboard box on the front with the items wrapped in thick blue paper and folded on the top in such a way nothing fell out.

Milk came in glass bottles delivered in an electric vehicle call a milk float.

So please will someone tell these young people that they are the plastic lovers. It makes it more scary to think how short a time it took for it to get into the seas.

[pixie374]

Ah :-) We haven't had one of those in years! X

[AZardoz]

Most of the pollution in China is because of manufacturing cheap crap for the West.

[vulcan42]

Plastic, in all its forms, was developed during my lifetime but what the younger generations seem to forget or wish to ignore is we didn't ask for it. We weren't out in streets demanding plastic to make life easier. It didn't all suddenly appear but gradually arrived over a period of many years.(The first plastic was invented in 1907) Of course we accepted, we welcomed it, it's convenient, clean, colourful and extremely useful. The problem is it's too useful, every trade, industry and manufacturer uses it sometimes totally irresponsibly, do bricks need to be wrapped in plastic, does bubble wrap need to wrapped in bubble wrap? yes I've seen that. The younger generations embrace the widespread use of plastic as much as the older generations, what do they think their credit cards, mobile phones, computers, car components are made from; have they all stopped using it? no for the simple reason it is very much part of our lives. The recycling of plastic is moving, albeit slowly but it's been around for 112 years, it takes time to get vast quantities of plastic recycled and playing the blame game gets us nowhere.

[AZardoz]

BA for Vulcan.