When you have a grandchild, who is, as usual with grandchildren, rather more precious than she needs to be, you have to think seriously about what her world will be in two or three decades when her children occupy their habitat. And whose is this habitat, anyway? Surely not just for the human animal, when there are so many more animal and other species to cherish.
Even in my household we cannot achieve the simple objective of each person doing their best to avoid plastic waste, for instance. My daughter and I religiously use our reusable shopping bags when we buy groceries, but my son forgets every time. Similarly, we order our milk in glass bottles, but I break one or two every now and then. That is my senile clumsiness. My son wants us to go back to plastic bottles and we had a small civil war over that. Mind you, he generally does the cleaning up, frig, floor and all over the kitchen when I shatter another one and has good cause to be angry. But the bigger picture in my mind will not allow plastic bottles again. I break a lot of other things as well. Mugs, jars... My sense of space appears dismal, so I don't drive very much these days either.
Apropos of waste, I consider all the things we now consider routinely essential, compared to fifty years ago. Indeed I remember my surprise when I asked an American friend, in 1985, what she missed most in the African bush, while working in Makeni in Sierra Leone, she said it was disposable kitchen napkins. Jesus wept!
I am no less guilty -- I am aware of all the things I take for granted in this junk-filled planet, which I managed without in my life in Thalassery, during the forties and fifties.
In Thalassery, salt and sugar and such like came wrapped in old newspaper. Rice came in gunny bags. There were no ready-made clothes in the shops, so we bought cotton material and the tailor made my skirts and blouses. We had just enough clothes to get by. Now, if I go to our wardrobes, (wardrobes? That itself is a new concept.) I find the clothes crushed into the spaces, hangers doubling up for existence. We clear excess out every month and the Heart Foundation man takes away several cartons of clothes. But we seem to just replace the ones we give away.
There is the other junk too. Birthday gifts and Christmas rubbish, Mother's Day and all else in the year. I have banned gifts and told my children to give the money to Shelter. They are not impressed.
This is just a beginning of my waste-wail. More to come. I'm sorry, but this occupies a good deal of my withered brain-space. Till next week when I shall moan and murmur again.
Even in my household we cannot achieve the simple objective of each person doing their best to avoid plastic waste, for instance. My daughter and I religiously use our reusable shopping bags when we buy groceries, but my son forgets every time. Similarly, we order our milk in glass bottles, but I break one or two every now and then. That is my senile clumsiness. My son wants us to go back to plastic bottles and we had a small civil war over that. Mind you, he generally does the cleaning up, frig, floor and all over the kitchen when I shatter another one and has good cause to be angry. But the bigger picture in my mind will not allow plastic bottles again. I break a lot of other things as well. Mugs, jars... My sense of space appears dismal, so I don't drive very much these days either.
Apropos of waste, I consider all the things we now consider routinely essential, compared to fifty years ago. Indeed I remember my surprise when I asked an American friend, in 1985, what she missed most in the African bush, while working in Makeni in Sierra Leone, she said it was disposable kitchen napkins. Jesus wept!
I am no less guilty -- I am aware of all the things I take for granted in this junk-filled planet, which I managed without in my life in Thalassery, during the forties and fifties.
In Thalassery, salt and sugar and such like came wrapped in old newspaper. Rice came in gunny bags. There were no ready-made clothes in the shops, so we bought cotton material and the tailor made my skirts and blouses. We had just enough clothes to get by. Now, if I go to our wardrobes, (wardrobes? That itself is a new concept.) I find the clothes crushed into the spaces, hangers doubling up for existence. We clear excess out every month and the Heart Foundation man takes away several cartons of clothes. But we seem to just replace the ones we give away.
There is the other junk too. Birthday gifts and Christmas rubbish, Mother's Day and all else in the year. I have banned gifts and told my children to give the money to Shelter. They are not impressed.
This is just a beginning of my waste-wail. More to come. I'm sorry, but this occupies a good deal of my withered brain-space. Till next week when I shall moan and murmur again.
