Today was an office day, which entails several bus rides. In thinking about "waste" I find myself pondering not only food and packaging, but also energy. Now taking the bus is certainly less wasteful than driving a car - a bus can transport more people in a single vehicle, and is therefore more efficient - and as an individual it seems I could say that catching a bus that would go where it was going anyway is "zero waste". But you can't consider these questions just as individual. After all, if nobody got the bus, eventually busses would stop running altogether, which would save even more energy. So would that be less than zero waste? That doesn't seem possible. Complex questions that I need to think about some more. I wonder if these are factored in to calculations made about our carbon footprints.
I could, indeed, work from home, and sometimes I do. But not today. I had a meeting with my supervisor, which was, not at all unusually, postponed. So I could have worked from home. But I had to leave home to find that out. So it goes.
Out of curiosity, as I'd packed my own lunch, I investigated what zero waste options might be available for me on my half-hour allotted lunch break, i.e. within walking distance of my office.
Bananas. That's it. A small catering van, a petrol station, and a medium sized Co-op all within five minutes' walk, but the only thing available to eat that did not come in plastic or other dubiously "recyclable" packaging were bunches of bananas. There was plenty of fruit, of course, but almost all of it was contained in pointless plastic.
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| Grapes. No, really. |
The ubiquitous "meal deal". Sigh. The equally ubiquitous Starbucks self-service station.
Disposable cups, individually packaged sugar, plastic spoons. Double sigh. I noted, with some amusement, but more despair, the dizzying array of plastic cups and cutlery, wrapped in yet more plastic, for sale.
That's right, my friends. Both "premium" and "basic quality" plastic utensils are available. Oh, the wonders of consumer choice. Triple sigh.
On the way home, I stopped in at the market I bought broccoli, sweetcorn, garlic, and onions. No packaging required, though I was, needless to say, offered a bag. I declined, having brought one with me, because I alone can save the planet. Indeed.
How should a person feel about all this? The default setting appears to be smugness, but this is hardly satisfactory. As with the bus journeys, so it is with the pointless proliferation of plastic. The demand creates the supply, and vice versa. It's a horrifying kind of symbiosis. Where does it end, and how? It seems like the solutions are so simple, but when taken only as individuals, real change remains perpetually out of reach.
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