What We Keep And What We Throw Away

On an individual scale in the rush of life convenience has led to folks carelessly tossing styrofoam containers, coffee cups, water bottles, cans and plastic bags wherever. Rain carries all of it into the streams and eventually the ocean Shopping bags are a big culprit.

MrsT goes shopping in the little red car to buy a bulk of food and supplies. She likes to go early to avoid the crowds. She warned MrT “I’m going shopping early tomorrow morning…at Costco. Is there anything you need?”

“Ohh yes! We need coffee and the marmalade is all but finished.”

On her return the car was laden with bags of groceries, yoghurt, ice cream, cookies snacks and big containers of soap, hand, dishwasher and washing machine powder.

In the T’s house there was a big bag of bags, home to cloth bags, bags with straps for carrying and bags of different shapes and sizes. Some were new but mostly they were old bags, strong and trustworthy. MrsT had a couple of bags with straps that she ket in her purse for emergencies. These could be rolled into neat little balls and tucked away. There were some plastic bags kept for recycling food waste, ones that shoppers snapped off a roll in a grocery store.

MrT was licking the the last bits of marmalade out of the jar when MrsT burst into the kitchen with the bags of supplies.

“ Now that’s what I call just in time delivery.”

The silent look he got said “Mister if you don’t get moving there will be no more marmalade.”

He began unpacking the bags. There must have been seven or eight of them, all organized by where the contents would go. Finding room in the freezer, fridge, countertop and pantry was at times a challenge but MrsT found space where there was none reshuffling the old yoghurt or ice cream containers now filled with leftovers or repacking a shelf in the pantry cupboard to make room.

“How do you manage all of this MrsT.”

“It comes from years of self-denial MrT. Wasn’t it you that called me the “Bag Lady” way back when I began refusing a stores plastic bags in preference to my reusable carryall ones.“

“To me the “Bag Lady” sounded so derogatory back then conjuring images of a homeless person carrying their belongings in plastic bags but now I am a proud ‘Bag Lady’ holding my head high at the till. You know MrT that our world is full of plastic straws, cups, cutlery, wrap and water bottles to name a few non-perishable items.”

“What we keep my dear are our convictions, our beliefs and the choice is ours as to what we keep and what we throw away. Remember that sign we saw so often at the entrance to a public park or campground “What you carry in please carry out” in other words “Keep the trash don’t leave it behind.”

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Plastic has been fantastic in filling the the fortunes of numerous industries. Packaging of food has taken off with convenient solutions like ziplock bags, wrap, lining of canned foods, rolls of bags for collecting fruit and veggies in a grocery store and plastic shopping bags. Plastic straws and cups, water bottles and juice boxes add to a growing list of non perishable packaging.

What we throw away is evident in the Great Pacific garbage patch where circulating currents have carried vast quantities marine debris. Some of the plastic in the patch is over 50 years old, and includes items (and fragments of items) such as “plastic lighters, toothbrushes, water bottles, pens, baby bottles, cell phones, plastic bags, and tiny plastic pellets used a a raw material in manufacturing plastic. The small fibers of wood pulp found throughout the patch are believed to originate from the thousands of tons of toilet paper flushed into the oceans daily.

Slowly on a large scale efforts are being made to filter this garbage preventing further accumulation of debris in the ocean. A huge creepy-crawly like contraption has been developed to sweep up the trash which is dumped on shore. The trash is used to manufacture those tiny plastic pellets making this process a recycling restoration. The future depends largely on political will and funding such projects.

From what we throw away in time we get to keep a renewed habitat.

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