EARLY APRIL 2018 – Those who know me mainly because they receive e-mails from me know that I
have a regular e-mail signature, which reads:
Cause no
harm
Be Honest
Be peaceful
Be responsible
They are four simple ideas (call them
slogans if you like) which, if adopted universally, could change our world and
resolve so many of our problems. Nobody has ever challenged that signature
line. How interesting.
You might think that the words need
no explanation but I keep coming back to reflect upon ‘Be Responsible’. That in itself is quite a deep concept, I
believe. Join me as I muse.
I’ve written previously about the
idea of ‘draining the swamp’. Draining the swamp alludes to the challenge that:
‘when you are up to your armpits in alligators, it is difficult to remember
that the initial objective was to ‘drain the swamp’.
The ‘in’ thing currently seems to be
about plastic in our oceans and how to eliminate it – aka ‘how to drain the
swamp’. Whichever way I reflect on that problem I continually come back to the
fact that most people (in this
country – I can’t speak for elsewhere) dispose of plastic waste responsibly.
That is to say, they put it in a recycling bin to be collected by agents of
their local council. Admittedly, some throw away their plastic waste in the
street but, even there, mostly the
council’s agents retrieve it and it goes for recycling. The common factor is
that in this country most waste plastic goes to recycling and we pay for that
within our Council Tax payments. So, I have to ask – how is it that so much seems to end up in the oceans?
And, while I’m about it, if most waste plastic (in this country) is
collected one way or another to be recycled, how does a tax on the use of plastics change anything? And if most waste in
the oceans comes from other countries which perhaps have less sophisticated
recycling programmes – how does a tax on the use of plastics in this country
change anything in the oceans? We have been conned again!
It seems to me that there are two
sides to the debate. Firstly,
plastic is made/used/sold in preference to other packaging materials, probably
on grounds of lower cost (?) and weight. But it is made/used/sold because people will buy it.
Secondly, people
will buy it because it is readily available (and light weight) and they don’t
have to think about it. THAT, I call
irresponsible. They have closed their minds to plastics in oceans (lost
sight of the initial objective) because it seems far removed from our local
high streets.
I suggest to you that the responsible
approach (and which at the same time causes
no harm) should be for most of us to avoid buying products packed in
plastic, whether that refers to soft drinks, washing-up liquid, sauces, bread, or
anything else you care to think about. And also anything
offered to us wrapped in plastic simply because the producer/seller knows that
plastic packaging will seem attractive to those who don’t stop to think about
these things.
I conclude, therefore,
that if we are to act in a responsible manner we (all of us) will avoid buying
products presented to us in plastic whenever
it is possible to do so. I think I shall describe that as a form of ‘being responsible’. If we won’t buy plastic, manufacturers of
plastic will find a different product packaging to offer, as will those sellers
who merely use plastic conveniently. If we refuse to buy endless plastic packaging
we have made a start in our civic responsibility and will avoid the need for
government to create a new and unnecessary tax. I’ve made a start by asking my
local greengrocer to decant my purchases into brown paper bags when I buy fruit
and vegetables displayed in light plastic cartons. He doesn’t mind because he
can simply re-use the plastic container rather than replace it. You could do
that, couldn’t you?
I’ve also ceased to buy tonic water
offered in plastic bottles. I now deliberately seek out tonic water which is
offered in glass bottles or in tin cans. It costs me more per unit but glass
bottles and tin cans don’t get into the food chain in the way that plastic
does. And all of us know that gin is sold in glass bottles already, don’t we?
Gosh, I think I might be on to something here!
Why in the world do so many of us buy
soft drinks and water in small bottles when we could easily fill a bottle or
flask with water (filtered, if you so choose) at home – for nothing? There is
no extra tax to pay, no recycling to be done, nothing to end up in the ocean. I
call it being responsible; and it could
change the way we look at our world.
And I haven’t even begun to think how
to write about Cause
no Harm, Be Honest or Be Peaceful.
*****
On top of everything else there is
now a sugar tax which too many people will pay simply because those same too many
people won’t say ‘NO’ to popular fizzy drinks. And don’t try to lure me into an
exchange about whether or not you have a RIGHT to do whatever you want to your
body. Just don’t go there. I’m not in the mood.
*****
New subject:
Not just in USA but around the world last week people marked the 50th
anniversary of the murder of Rev. Martin Luther King. He was 39. I was 24 at
the time and naive. I didn’t understand segregation as it was portrayed here on
TV, radio and in newspapers. I didn’t understand it, either, in South Africa,
or Rhodesia, or Australia. I didn’t understand that Britain, my Great Britain,
was the backbone of the slavery and forced migration businesses for the
flimsiest of so-called criminal reasons under the penal codes of the times. Our
leaders chose to partition India but not out of the goodness of their hearts.
Our leaders chose to create the new State of Israel to which Europe’s Jews
could go rather than have them live amongst us, especially in Europe, but not
out of the goodness of their hearts. We have a bloody, self-centred, bigoted
history because some people in business and government loved money and power
more than they loved their fellow man. True, some leaders led but it seems most
stayed at home and used the useful idiots of the day to perform their dirty
work. Just as they do today and as some leaders have done since the dawn of
time.
I have the full text of Martin Luther
King’s final speech: ‘I’ve been to the mountain top’ (or ‘I have a dream’) that
he preached in Memphis on April 3rd, 1968. It is theatrical oratory but,
like all good theatre, it moved people.
Conspiracy theories surround MLK’s life
and death which adds weight to the universal claim that ‘there is nothing new
under the sun’. Some of those theories and stories are truly horrible,
despicable, personal and destructive, just as they are today. We have learned
nothing beyond not trusting each other and not trusting politicians, especially
not politicians even though we vote for them. Not lawyers. Not those who follow
a different religion. Not those who follow no religion. Not those who are
poorer than we are. Not those who are wealthier than we are. As my Welsh grandfather used to say to
Grandma – ‘the whole world’s queer, except thee and me; and I’m not so sure
about thee, sometimes’. We seem to want
to cause harm, be dishonest. Not be
responsible. And we’d like the NHS to keep us alive forever?
You couldn’t make it up.
* * * * *
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