we didn't have the green thing back then

[kauphy]

How wasteful our generation was




In line at the store the cashier told the older woman that she should bring her
own grocery bag because plastic bags weren’t good for the environment. The
woman apologized to him and explained, “We didn’t have what you call the "green thing"
back in my day.”


The clerk responded, "That's our problem today. Likely, your generation did
not care enough to save our environment."


He was right, our generation didn’t have the green thing in its day.


Back then, we returned our milk bottles, soda bottles and the very few beer bottles
to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and
refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over. So we really did recycle.

But we didn’t have the green thing back in that elderly customer's day.

In her day, we walked up stairs, because we didn’t have an escalator in every
store and office building. We walked to the grocery store and didn’t climb into a
300-horsepower, rip-roaring machine every time we had to go a block or two.

But the lady was right. We didn’t have the green thing in our day.

Back then, we washed the baby’s diapers because we didn’t have the
throw-away kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy gobbling machine
burning up mega-watts of 220 volts – wind and solar power really did dry the clothes.
Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new
clothing from the latest fashion center or a catalog with an UPS burning diesel to deliver them.

But that old lady is right, they didn’t have the green thing back in her day.

Back then, we had a TV it was one TV, more than likely a radio, in the house
not a TV in every room. The TV had a small screen the size of a hanker-chief,
not a screen the size of the state of Montana . In the kitchen, we blended and
stirred by hand because we didn’t have electric machines to do everything for us.

When we packaged a fragile item to send through the mail, we used a wadded
up old newspaper to cushion it, not styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap.

Back then, we didn’t fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to cut the lawn.
We used a push mower that ran on human power. We exercised by working so
we didn’t need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity
with 5,000 watts of light burning overhead.

She’s right, we didn’t have the green thing back then.

We drank from a hydrant or fountain when we were thirsty instead of using a plastic
cup or a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water. We refilled our writing pens
with ink instead of buying a new pen, and we replaced the razor blades in a razor instead
of throwing away the whole razor, handle and all just because the blade got dull.

But we didn’t have the green thing back then.

Back then, a few people, needing to a great distance, took the streetcar or a bus and
kids rode their bikes to school or rode the school bus instead of turning their moms into
a 24-hour taxi service. We didn’t have every kind of after school enjoyment such as
soccer, ballet, music, and things like that to go to.

We had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen
appliances. We didn’t have or need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed
from satellites 2,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest pizza joint.
Our phone hung on the wall and didn’t require an update every 30 days.

But isn't it sad the current generation laments how wasteful we old folks were just
because we didn't have the "Green Thing" back then?

 

[vinylweatherman]

The problem happened in the late 1960's and 1970's. I remember when glass bottles that the kids took back to the shop for 3p (that's OLD UK pennies, 240 to the £1) were withdrawn because it was "too much bother" for the drinks companies to be dealing with return, sterilise, refill. We also recycled newspapers, until it was stopped by decisions handed down "from above". People who still insisted on recycling were looked at as though they weren't quite right in the head.

The REAL culprit was the desire for constant economic growth. This was government policy, and rules were manipulated by governments and big companies in order to maximise consumption. They started sealing electrical goods so that noone could get the back off & repair them. They prevented people from getting the service parts needed to keep something old working, even to the extent of destroying piles of unused parts rather than allowing a glut to enter the market when a product was considered "end of life".

Despite the current emphasis on "the green thing", you cannot replace the battery in an iPod, you have to send it back which costs almost as much as getting a new one, so you do, and the old one gets thrown away. I have a Toshiba laptop, a mere 3 years old and running Vista. It needs a fan, but Toshiba don't supply them, and don't even list the part number or full specifications - because they want me to chuck it & get a new one (not a problem with desktop PCs).

No government has DARED tell Apple to make iPod batteries easily replaceable, and no government has made laws requiring manufacturers to support repair and reuse by making parts available to the retail market for those who wish to have a gadget repaired, rather than get the latest model.

Even recycling here is driven by money, rather than the desire to stop stuff going to landfill. We send perfectly good type "1" and "2" plastic to landfill, not because there is no market for it, but because it doesn't happen to be made into a bottle.

I told my brother off for throwing beer bottles into the landfill bin, and he said he would start taking the trouble to recycle when the government decided to take it seriously.

We take glass to bottle banks, and although we are told to separate the colours, they just empty all the banks into the same load when they are emptied, and the banks often become full, and we are then "punished" for recycling too much because they get emptied when it's due, rather than when they get full.

I certainly recycle more than I did in the 1990's, but we are constantly being "jerked around" by the council with all the "red tape" we have to navigate, which makes it more bother to recycle than it used to be.

If you see something at the tip that someone has chucked out, but has a part in it that could enable you to repair something and reuse it, you are not allowed to take it, it has to be crushed, landfilled, broken up, etc because of this "red tape".

When I left home, my first few colour TVs were liberated from the council tip, and one lasted for YEARS longer.


Until governments accept that we CANNOT have 1% to 2% increase in GDP year on year forever, and stop banking on this in order to balance the books, our progress in "greening" what we do will be far slower than is necessary.

The threat of climate change has not made things change fast enough, but eventually the easy oil will run out, and "difficult oil" will be very much more expensive, and will not be available in the quantities we use now. We will then have no choice in the matter. Plastic will be worth it's weight in gold, and noone will say it can't be recycled just because it isn't a bottle.

I am known to be a "bit weird" because I have "useful stuff" in stock around the house, just in case it comes in handy one day, or is worth money because someone else wishes you can still get hold of it.

There was a TV programme on last year where they had a family live life like it used to be, and they had lots of trouble putting together the 1970's episode because they struggled to track down the iconic gadgets of the age. I thought "pity they only mentioned this AFTER making and showing the series", because one of the iconic gadgets they featured as being particulary hard to source was sitting on my living room floor ........

...............by the cupboard full of VHS tapes and Vinyl records

 

[chayton]

Interesting - I heard awhile ago that some of the 'environmentally friendly' reusable shopping bags have really high lead content - higher than toys that have been recalled.

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[vinylweatherman]

Interesting - I heard awhile ago that some of the 'environmentally friendly' reusable shopping bags have really high lead content - higher than toys that have been recalled.

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Maybe they took a short cut, and tried to fleece shoppers by inflating the profit made by selling bags that by design do not need replacing very often.

It is the big supermarkets that are resisting a ban on plastic bags, but this is not because they care about the environment, it is because shoppers buy LESS if they have only a set number of bags available to put it in, and this means no "impulse buys", with shoppers more likely to buy only what they came in for, and brought bags to carry home.

With an unlimited supply of plastic bags at the till, shoppers don't have to worry about whether they have brought enough bags, they only have to worry whether their car is big enough.

The other problem is that plastic bags are free, so have no value to the customer as they can always get some more for free on the next visit.

Good reusable bags cost quite a bit, and are not made from plastic.

My plastic bags have a second life, binliners for the small bins around the house.

 

[chayton]

A few of the supermarkets here charge for disposable plastic bags, like five cents per bag.

We've got a few cloth bags that we reuse but our problem is A) we always forget to bring them and B) once we take them home they're covered with dog hair since the groceries ride in the same place as the dog.

 

[baldidiot]

A few of the supermarkets here charge for disposable plastic bags, like five cents per bag.

We've got a few cloth bags that we reuse but our problem is A) we always forget to bring them and B) once we take them home they're covered with dog hair since the groceries ride in the same place as the dog.

Same here - a few places charge 5p for a bag (m&s I think? possibly waitrose - I can't remember exactly I just know I've had to pay before).

And we also forget to take reusable bags

 

[Jasminebed]

When I was younger, groceries were packed into paper bags. For a while there was a choice paper or plastic.

I'm a fairly avid recycler, but I estimate I spend about 4 hours a week on it.... and I could do more.

Back then, major appliances lasted 30 years or more. A kettle had a cord that plugged in, so the cord could be replaced.

Nothing came in a blister pack.

TVs had tubes and were repaired. Someone came by on a bicycle cart and sharpened your scissors.

 

[kauphy]

i,ve tryed to do it by getting my gas and ele on line and not use paper bills.

i,ve been doing it for awhile but the last 2 times they have lost my payment.

and when i call them i was told well how do we know you made the payment? theres no one over here that would lose it.

so now its back to paper bills.

and something on what vm was talking about have you ever brought a new computer only to find everything that you had for your last computer no longer is compatable with the new one?

so you have to buy all new stuff that will work on the running system your new computer has on it.

and if you can,t give away sell or whatever with the old stuff it ends up in the trash.

i,m talking printers cameras computer games things like that.

i know i went out and got my hubby some star track games for his computer and his went down so we had to get him a new one.

and when we did the games i spent over 100$ on would not work with the new computer.

now of days its all about money not makeing things last or anything eles.

 

[vinylweatherman]

When I was younger, groceries were packed into paper bags. For a while there was a choice paper or plastic.

I'm a fairly avid recycler, but I estimate I spend about 4 hours a week on it.... and I could do more.

Back then, major appliances lasted 30 years or more. A kettle had a cord that plugged in, so the cord could be replaced.

Nothing came in a blister pack.

TVs had tubes and were repaired. Someone came by on a bicycle cart and sharpened your scissors.

To cut costs, appliances are made with cheaper, lower quality, parts. They are not intended to last 30 years, more like 5. They are cheap enough new that it costs more to have one repaired than it does to get a new one and throw the old one away. Manufacturers ensure this by making things as "sealed for life units" so that repair is even harder, and the casing has to be damaged to get at the innards. They also scare users off from attempting repair by those "danger of electric shock, do not remove cover" signs that every self respecting teenage boy would ignore when I was that young in the 1970's. At least you COULD get the cover off back then, and have a go.

Thankfully, it has become EASIER to get the cover off a desktop, and they must be one of the few gadgets that have been made EASIER to repair or upgrade by the user. Of course, none of this helps when Microsoft stop supporting the OS after a few years, and none of the software will work with the next OS up, and in many cases neither will the computer.

I STILL have my Windows 98 desktop running "admin", despite the best efforts of Microsoft and software vendors to kill it off.

Yesterday, another bit the dust. My "lifetime access to updates" has been curtailed by Nero for my copy of Nero 6, but they will sell me the latest end of product life version on a CD for £7, but will NOT allow me to download the update as agreed, and for free, from the website. It is to force me to stop using it, and spend £50 on version 10. I don't have to though, since XP has it's own inbuilt CD burning support, unlike Windows 98. They are not getting £7 off me.

It will be a case of breaking my Windows 98 PC for parts, and throwing the carcass away at the council tip, where it will be exported to some third world country so that little kids can pick out the valuable toxic metals, and their overlords can try to get my personal information from the hard drive

 

[lots0]

...I STILL have my Windows 98 desktop running "admin", despite the best efforts of Microsoft and software vendors to kill it off...

I am somewhat 'resistant' to change myself, but I have to say this made me smile.

It must be quite a challenge to keep it running. You don't have it online do you? 98 had so many security holes in it you could use it for a window screen...

 

[vinylweatherman]

I am somewhat 'resistant' to change myself, but I have to say this made me smile.

It must be quite a challenge to keep it running. You don't have it online do you? 98 had so many security holes in it you could use it for a window screen...

It's online, but has to connect via a router since my ISP does not support Win98. It had all the updates until the bitter end.

It has been a struggle, and it keeps on crashing because so much is no longer compatable with it.

It will shortly be retired, since I have brought back a basic Windows XP PC that I originally bought for an "away" connection at my Mum's place. She recently replaced it with a laptop because it took up less room, and could be discretely covered by a pretty cloth.

I will move all my "admin" to one of the XP machines, and the 98 machine will have to go to clear the space.

My "office" will become a toddler bedroom later this month, and will be filled by 2 kids that belong to my niece. The contents will therefore need to be rehoused elsewhere, and out of reach of tiny sticky fingers, as will many other items.

A gated access control system is also to be fitted

 

[lots0]

XP??? lol

I got a 64bit box with Windows7 Pro installed, a little over a year ago... and I Love it.
I have since updated all my computers to W7 Pro (wireless networking is a breeze with W7).
I ran XP for years... and hated it, crashes and lost data all the time... XP truly sucks compared to W7, IMO.

 

[vinylweatherman]

XP??? lol

I got a 64bit box with Windows7 Pro installed, a little over a year ago... and I Love it.
I have since updated all my computers to W7 Pro (wireless networking is a breeze with W7).
I ran XP for years... and hated it, crashes and lost data all the time... XP truly sucks compared to W7, IMO.

My next PC will probably be Windows 7, or maybe Windows 8.

Microsoft charge a fair bit to upgrade, so you tend to be stuck with the OS that comes preinstalled from the factory, which presumably they get much cheaper than retail copies.

 

[Casinomeister]

In Germany, virtually everyone carries their own shopping basket into grocery stores. That's what you use. If you forget to bring one, you're SOL or you can purchase a bag for 20 cents. I am always floored when I visit the states - the amount of bags people use (plastic or paper) is mind boggling.

By the way, we have to separate our garbage into five categories (paper, plastic, general non-recyclable, table scrap garbage, and compost). You keep the compost for your garden. The paper and plastic is free, and they weigh the rest and charge you for it.

Yes, they weigh our garbage.

Recycling is not a choice here. It's the law.

 

[rainmaker]

In Germany, virtually everyone carries their own shopping basket into grocery stores. That's what you use. If you forget to bring one, you're SOL or you can purchase a bag for 20 cents. I am always floored when I visit the states - the amount of bags people use (plastic or paper) is mind boggling.

By the way, we have to separate our garbage into five categories (paper, plastic, general non-recyclable, table scrap garbage, and compost). You keep the compost for your garden. The paper and plastic is free, and they weigh the rest and charge you for it.

Yes, they weigh our garbage.

Recycling is not a choice here. It's the law.

Yeah, we have the same system in Norway (separate our garbage). I see it as a good thing.

We also deliver empty bottles and cans back to the stores, where you will get a return per bottle (up to about 40 US cents per bottle)

 

[vinylweatherman]

In Germany, virtually everyone carries their own shopping basket into grocery stores. That's what you use. If you forget to bring one, you're SOL or you can purchase a bag for 20 cents. I am always floored when I visit the states - the amount of bags people use (plastic or paper) is mind boggling.

By the way, we have to separate our garbage into five categories (paper, plastic, general non-recyclable, table scrap garbage, and compost). You keep the compost for your garden. The paper and plastic is free, and they weigh the rest and charge you for it.

Yes, they weigh our garbage.

Recycling is not a choice here. It's the law.

I suggested charging by weight for landfill to the council, and they said the law prevented them from doing this.
Later, some councils started to put chips into bins so that they could monitor the amount of landfill, but people had developed such a mistrust of councils using enforcement as a money making scheme, rather than to make life better, that they had to beat a hasty retreat and think again.

The UK is known to be behind the EU when it comes to recycling.
Our council did try to get us to separate paper, plastic, etc - but it was clear thay had never actually thought about how this would work.

Paper went into a box WITH NO LID, and no WHEELS - yet we were supposed to carry it to a collection point every fortnight. Even when DRY the box could not be lifted very easily, let alone carried. When it rained (this is the UK remember), it became IMPOSSIBLE. Plastic and cans, much lighter, and not made heavier by getting wet, went into a large bin with a lid & wheels!
Now, we put everything into the big bin with lid and wheels, and it gets sorted at a big sorting facility.
They then removed all other ways to recycle paper and plastic at big supermarkets, not thinking it through yet AGAIN, because not EVERY council collects paper and plastic, and catchment areas for supermarkets are not the same as for councils. Now we have people who neither have paper and plastic collected, nor can they take it with them to get rid of when shopping.

For other recycling, you MUST be able to drive, else you are not allowed to bring it to the council recycling depot, which is the ONLY place that accepts many of the other items. This means that people who don't drive have to throw many things into landfill that are recycled. The depot has to be a special journey, since it is in the middle of an industrial estate, not somewhere people will visit for any other reason and "share" that journey with another purpose, which WAS the case when it could be taken to the supermarket.

Yeah, we have the same system in Norway (separate our garbage). I see it as a good thing.

We also deliver empty bottles and cans back to the stores, where you will get a return per bottle (up to about 40 US cents per bottle)

Most shops don't want the burden, and will only do this if they are FORCED to. In the 1960's and 70's it was COMMON to be able to take glass bottles back to the shops that sold them, and we would get a small amount of money in return. This was GREAT for the kids, who would actively search out these bottles, even picking them up off the street where they had been dumped by those too lazy to take them back for the money (it wasn't much). The money we got was then "recycled" into sweets, or another bottle of drink. The bottles were then reused.

Throughout the 80's and 90's, we were constantly "jerked around" by the councils, as recycling schemes were born, and then abruptly discontinued without notice time and time again. Many just gave up playing this silly game, and threw everything into landfill.

When the latest recycling moves came in, the biggest obstacle was to convince people they were SERIOUS about it this time around, and it would NOT be cancelled after a few months as had all the others.

We are STILL getting "jerked around", as recycling points are treated as an unwanted burden, and are often moved around or removed without notice. This means that you learn where you can take some items like batteries, and then one day you find the recycling point is no longer where it was, and no-one at the store has a clue what happened, let alone the customers. Once you have to take your batteries back home with you, the habit is broken, and they start getting thrown into the landfill bin again.

"Red Tape" has made it unnecessarily difficult for small businesses to recycle, since they don't produce enough of it to interest a recycling contractor, neither are they allowed to take it to a recycling point themselves, so they just throw everything into the one bin, which is collected and goes straight to landfill.
This shows that it is not just a case of something being recyclable because it is paper or a bottle, it can only be recycled if it comes from home, but not if it has come from your business activities. This is what my brother meant when he said "when the government starts taking it seriously".

If they WERE serious about it, they would use what WORKS to maximise the amount of material recycled, and would make the rules fit people's needs and lifestyles. At present, the red tape imposes a limitation on the amount recycled, with adherence to the rules being considered more important than preventing recyclable material ending up in landfill.

The UK has some way to go before it gets as far as the EU.

What is needed are LAWS to FORCE councils to put "red tape" and money SECOND, and maximising the amount recycled FIRST.

By far the BEST way to do this would be to allow councils to charge businesses for local services, something that the last government took away because it feared that some councils were "competing" unfairly with others by attracting businesses through lower charges. The "red tape" evolved from this situation, and means that if councils spend money on getting more recycling done by businesses, they CANNOT pass the charge on to the businesses that benefit, and the residents end up paying, and they see no reason why they should.

Our council is particularly good, having exceeded government targets for RESIDENT recycling, and plan to start collecting other items in the future to ensure that even more is recycled.

Supermarkets only offer facilities for "goodwill", to show customers how "green" they are compared to others. This means that MONEY comes first, and recycling SECOND. This is why we get "jerked around" when it comes to which facilities we will find when we visit.

The idea of charging by weight has all but vanished, the trust in authority isn't there, and most feel it will be used as an additional tax, and we will end up paying TWICE for the same service, which is already part of what we pay for with our council tax, levied on each property.

 

[GrandMaster]

Yes, they weigh our garbage.

I would not trust my local council to weigh my rubbish accurately.

In poorer areas people would just dump rubbish on the street or in the neighbours' bin to save money, or "playful" children would put bricks in other people's bins or fill them up with water.

The UK is known to be behind the EU when it comes to recycling.

Actually, the UK is 9th out of 27 in the EU. However, I agree with you that councils don't make recycling easy.

 

[vinylweatherman]

I would not trust my local council to weigh my rubbish accurately.

In poorer areas people would just dump rubbish on the street or in the neighbours' bin to save money, or "playful" children would put bricks in other people's bins or fill them up with water.


Actually, the UK is 9th out of 27 in the EU. However, I agree with you that councils don't make recycling easy.

That's because they got a rap over the knuckles from Brussels for their slow progress.

We still get "can't recycle this because there isn't a market for it" even though OTHER councils and countries have managed to find "a market for it".

It seems the schemes have been put together as we go along, and no thought for the future has gone into some aspects, which means that when some markets do open up, the system has nothing in place to cater for that type of material being collected.

Many went with the "all in one bin" solution, but this does NOT work with many types of material since the machines used for sorting cannot cope, and would have to be redesigned. This is despite the fact that they were initially designed and implemented as part of a "25 year plan". The council are then bound to a 25 year contract, so it is hard to make major changes, or switch to another contractor.

We did have different bins for different materials, but there was no nationally agreed standards, thus it was impossible to implement a national education campaign, so learning the system was knowledge that applied very locally, and a house move meant forgetting all you had learned, and starting all over again with a different system.

Here, my GREEN bin is for landfill, yet GREEN is accepted as the colour for "saving the planet", and is mostly associated with recycling. In a town 11 miles away, where a friend lives, his green bin is for RECYCLING, and a BLACK bin is landfill. Other councils have different colours, schemes, etc for these functions. We now have paper recycling banks that ONLY accept newspapers and magazines, but not other types of paper such as junk mail, A4 printed sheets, etc. Those who run these banks struggle to get this message across, because we have been taught for YEARS to put ALL types of paper and cardboard into such banks by the local council.