On a recent trip to the grocery store, I was sans children, hence I had a chance to look around. I was the only one there with re-usable bags. Leaving the store, I began to wonder what it would take to get more people to switch to re-usable bags. It was so cheap, so easy. The most difficult part being that I have to remember to grab the bags from my trunk before entering stores. So why am I usually the only one at the checkout line handing over a pile of bags and asking for the re-usable bag discount (some clerks don’t even know how to get the register to do it). On the drive home, I saw a plastic bag dancing across the street in the wind, inevitably to get stuck in a tree or washed down the gutters in the next rainstorm.
I thought, Why isn’t the environment important?
On our street, I see recyclables in trash cans. And water running through gutters from unattended sprinklers. At school, I don’t see a recycling bin at all. In the trash at school, I see tons of paper, baggies, juice boxes and wrappers and I wonder why I seem to be the only mom packing a lunch with re-usable containers. I purchase plant-based laundry soap and don’t purchase softener at all, yet I don’t see sales of petroleum-based soaps dropping. I read an article in the Sunday magazine eulogizing incandescent bulbs and complaining about harsh and unreal light from compact fluorescent bulbs. I see cell and camera chargers sitting happily plugged in, with nothing to charge. I fill a bowl with soapy water to wash dishes and use rags and towels to mop spills from the floor, but I know too many who are still running the faucet as they load the dishwasher and unrolling half a roll of paper towels to catch a spill.
It’s a short list of easy things to do. I wonder why people don’t do it.
I close my eyes and think of a beautiful garden. It is a warm, sunny day full of clean air and fresh flowers scenting the light breeze. The image of a sun-ripened tomato enters my mind, so sweet and juicy or crisp lettuce, still specked with dirt, maybe a tiny green caterpillar. I think about the baby birds, fluttering and bathing in the water sitting in the large leaves of the eggplant bushes or the bunnies that come at night to feast on unprotected leaves. It is all too wonderful to me. And important.
It is important to me.
Cecily, I just wrote about this today, too! My home state of WV is considering a ban on plastic bags at retailers. I’ve been meaning to purchase my own set of cloth bags for some time now. I think all this talk is my sign to just go on and DO it.
Ceily, sometimes I think we are all in a state of “deep sleep.” That is why we cannot see. If we truly understood and saw…we would change. No one would have to force us or tell us.