Bizcuits | Waste not, want not

Leanda Lee

Monday morning’s video of the hygiene worker in Aberdeen, possibly in the employ of Hong Kong’s Food and Environmental Hygiene Department, throwing a bag of rubbish into the sea has gone viral. The commentary has not been limited to the PRD with attacks on the man, but pseudo-Waste Warriors all over have raised this one incident as proof of the hopelessness of any one person in ‘developed’ countries trying to minimise their waste when the Chinese, African and Indian peoples are creating the mess! This false argument merely attempts to alleviate the burden of responsibility from those who find lifestyle change too troublesome.

Really, how different are we from this hapless chap who although apparently lazy and hugely negligent, is more likely just ignorant, ill-trained and mal-educated. Awareness does not just happen; the luxury to have curiosity about the world, opportunity to access information and training to critically understand it are not bountiful assets. Even if just looking for the easy way out, how different is he from the rest of us who place convenience as a high, if not the highest, priority in our daily lives. Our take-away mindset of the coffee pods/cups/plastic water bottles/Styrofoam lunch boxes and plastic utensils dumped into street-side and professional office rubbish bins without another thought is unsustainable, and the cause of this man’s woes. This poor chap is ethically in a better position than most of us. He is just picking up from where we left off – and the destination is the same.

EVERY PIECE OF PLASTIC EVER MADE STILL EXISTS IN OUR WORLD

The world produced more plastic in the ten years to 2010 than in the whole of the century prior, and production is increasing. Only 9% of this stuff is being recycled. Would this chap understand the implications of this? Do we? Really?

8-million tonnes of this waste per year, goes into our oceans, and it’s not our friend, the ill-fated cleaner in Aberdeen, who has done this. We, our lifestyles, our waste-management systems and business priorities and economics have brought us to the point where micro-plastics from broken down waste are starting to be found in our bottled water and food chain along with the toxins that bind to them.

It’s #PlasticFreeJuly time and the timeliness of this careless rubbish dump could not have been more opportune. It reminds us of the ludicrous single strawberry imported by CitySuper. That precious little bundle was packed in a laminated cardboard box, tucked up in a foam sock on a bed of ‘straw’, and covered with clear wrap. And it was wonderful! Wonderful in its ability to raise awareness of how far our affluenza has brought us. News of this red mongrel hit the airwaves globally, and got people talking.

Exposure of single acts of idiocy like the Aberdeen boss and the ludicrous strawberry raise awareness far more than images of seas of plastic trash, starving sea-birds with intestines full of bottle tops, and statistics, because these vignettes reflect the madness in our own lives.

These precautionary tales exhort us to change. It is not so hard as it once was to minimise waste as advice and support are readily available: from carrying your own shopping bag to refusing straws, and eating in. An immediate shift to a zero-waste lifestyle is overwhelming, particularly for urbanites, but there are simple steps recommended by governments, environmental groups, bloggers and social networks that shift us from being waste-unaware towards benefits way beyond the environmental: eating better, saving money (processed foods are expensive), a deeper connection with the local community as we converse with local retailers rather than impersonal supermarkets, and moments to stop and pause instead of grab-and-go.

“Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself”, or so said Tolstoy.