Poles Apart
Posted on Sunday 24th June 2007
There is a powerful lobby here aiming to completely ban plastic carrier bags. They claim they are a unnecessary waste and can be substituted for reusable fabric bags. There is so much momentum behind this that Victoria has obliged retailers to charge a levy as a negative incentive for using them. Now I am all for reducing the amount of rubbish produced but plastic bags can be reused in the home. For example we use ours to take out the cats’ litter, as you can’t just throw it into the bin loose. There are other cogent arguments presented here.
Although this measure has caught the public attention I am astounded at how blinkered people are to the bigger picture of environmentalism. While they are keen on saving the planet with eco-friendly bags Australians are oblivious to air pollution. A typical car here is a Holden Commodore with a minimum engine size of 3.6 litres, far larger than the average in Europe. With a similar attitude as its American owner, fuel economy is not high on the list of priorities for Holden or its customers. I haven’t even got on to the hysterical paranoia over nuclear power that has forced the country to be almost entirely dependent on coal-fired electricity generation until recently.
However its not just Australia that has contradictions. The English language is full of them. For example:
- The homophones Chilly and Chili have opposing meanings. If I put a Jalapeño in the fridge, it will be a chilly chili. In other words it is both hot and cold!
- Perhaps someone can explain to me how skating on thin ice can get you into hot water.
I almost forgot - credit to Pink Floyd for the title.
I think it will be a good thing if Australia goes the way of Ireland and other places in charging a levy for plastic bags. (Feline requirements notwithstanding, we have more than enough plastic bags knocking around our house at the moment!) But reusable bags seem to have caught on here in a far bigger way than in the UK. I have been pleasantly surprised that more often than not here, you will be asked if you want a bag before your stuff is shoved into yet another placky bag when you’ve already got enough to sink a battleship in your hands! In the UK you get the opposite problem: I’ve had instances in the UK where they INSIST on you taking your merchandise in one of their bags, citing ’security reasons’. So what’s your receipt for then???
One reader of this blog (who will remain nameless), might recall a time at a branch of M&S where precisely this happened . . . let’s just say after some fairly strident convincing on the part of this reader we managed to depart, minus superfluous green plastic bag. . . .
Australians old enough to remember the British nuclear tests at Maralinga, on the Pitjantjatjara Aboriginal lands (far north of Adelaide) ….the Monte Bello Islands, off the North West Coast of Western Australia …and the French tests in the Pacific, have seen first hand, that governments can not be trusted with anything nuclear.
Monty Burns from The Simpsons comes to mind, when he tries to hide the nuclear waste from the plant in the forest.
While I would agree, that anything is better than coal, and nuclear energy, has the current capacity to replace our energy needs, it is the “soft option” compared to putting serious money into research and development of solar, wind and wave technology.