What if there’s a law saying you should eat your own trash?
Beauty is context bound, this everyone knows. Depends on angle.
Lighting. Mood. Things like that. It is made of particular
configurations of elements. Take one contributing factor out and that
which was thought to be beautiful would appear plain. We can of course
compensate with memory and still say ‘beautiful’ but that’s a life-trick
and self-delusion.
I am thinking of what the wind does. What happens in the air. Up in
the sky. Treetops swaying. Music of leaf. The moving poetry of cloud
formation. Colours at dawn. Sunset colours. Birds. In formation. Swoop
of a Kingfisher. And a polythene bag, a silisili malla that is.
It is everywhere
I’ve seen, like I am sure most people have, polythene bags blowing
about. It speaks of freedom to me. Being crazy. Out of control. ‘Un-equationable’.
Just a flimsy piece of something floating around without definite
trajectory, without destination or direction. It gets caught in a tree,
stays there or is pulled away by a gust of wind, lift suddenly, floats
down as though it is landing-time and then when you expect the show to
be done takes off again. You don’t want it to stop.
I can watch kites for hours. I could watch the polythene bag dance
for hours too, if that’s how long the show is going to take. These are
windy days. I could, I suppose, initiate a polythene bag dance. It is so
random that if one bag doesn’t take off, I could toss another one with a
wish and a whistle. And another. And another. Until one of them obliges.
Should I, though?
It is one thing to enjoy the spectacle produced by the chance union
of polythene bag and wind and quite another to play marriage-broker.
It’s not about the wind, but of the polythene. The dance is beautiful to
watch, but it remains chance configuration of element, one out of a
million in which the polythene factor can figure whereas most other
elemental soups featuring this ingredient would be indigestible. Go to
the nearest supermarket and try this out.
There
would be a mini pharmacy. Ask for a box of tablets to alleviate aches
and pains (yes, I am leaving brand name out here). Chances are the
person at the counter will put the box in a tiny polythene bag. Try it
in different shops, with different products of varying sizes and bulk.
Most times, the well-packed article (this is the age of packaging;
that’s more than half the cost and an important element of marketing)
will be ‘re-packed’ as it were in a polythene bag. Most times if you say
you don’t want the bag, the person at the counter will give you a
strange look. If you whisper, ‘polythene’, some would nod and smile.
Some would not. If you say one more sentence indicating the harm that
polythene does to the environment, even they would understand.
Habit leads it
It is not a question of not having the necessary information or being
ignorant. Habit, I think. Convenience breeds sloth. We are lazy. But if
we ask ourselves each time we pick up something from a shop and it is
tossed into a polythene bag whether we really need it, nine times out of
10 the answer would be ‘no’.
We’ve made it too easy for ourselves. When we do something we really
should not do or could very well avoid, we still do it because there’s
no pain of punishment, no moral standard or ethical imperative providing
guidance. The polythene bag can be tossed into the garbage. It quickly
becomes ‘someone else’s problem’. Not really, because these things come
around to haunt us or our children. ‘But that’s later, buddy’ is an
easily available dismissal isn’t it?
I know it is not convenient for people to go around with a wicker
basket all the time, just in case you need to rush into a shop to buy
some buscuits or sugar. We could do that, however, on occasions when we
go shopping. We know, in such situations, that we will be purchasing and
that whatever we buy is more than likely to be thrust into a polythene
bag and given to us. Repackaged.
We have a problem in disposing the packaging but we happily add to
the problem. The reason is simple. We can’t dispose the polythene, but
can displace both polythene and problem. Temporarily. The repercussions
will come sooner or later but we can’t really trace it back to error and
callousness on our part. We will not feel guilty.
Here’s a mechanism that might help us be more responsible. Imagine
that there’s a law which says ‘deal with your own trash’. You will
immediately wonder what you are going to do with the polythene. You will
have to collect and sell it to a recycling outfit. You will most
definitely ‘reduce’. You will think about ‘recycling’. You will
‘re-use’.
You can’t toss them into the wind with love and prayer really because
sooner or later your neighbour is going to get upset. And if you are a
decent human being, you yourself will be upset. There are other things
to wrap with love and send off with prayer. Not polythene.
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