Not everything that is plastic is 'disposables'

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Not all plastic things are meant to be “disposables” though it would appear that many people see more or less cheap items of plastic, which is not even plastic packaging (waste), as “disposable”, however. Yes, I am on my pet peeve again, unnecessary waste, and I am having a moan. Though educational I hope it to be as well.

I am coming across people's stupidity almost on a daily basis now again with picnics taking part more regularly in the park.

The picture above shows a perfect salad bowl – no not one in which salad was bought in a store but one that would have been bought as a bowl – just simply tossed into the litter bin – treated as a “disposable” item – simply because they could not be bothered to take it home to wash and reuse. The same, on the same day, also goes for a plastic baby feeding spoon that did not even make it into the bin but which was just thrown beside the bin. Needless to say neither item is on the way to landfill; they both came home with me to be – you guessed it – reused. (Apologies for the fuzziness of the picture of the baby spoon but the light was not right).

The bowl will be used exactly as its intention, as a salad bowl and the spoon, as I don't have a baby to feed around here, will be serving very well, due to shape, as a spoon with which to extract olives from a jar. Waste not, want not, as I keep saying.

The weird thing with this behavior is that it is not rich folks who do this but ordinary working class families who, one should think, cannot afford to be that wasteful. The saying: “The rich are rich because they live like poor, and the poor are poor because they live like rich.” seems very much to fit here.

What is most disconcerting with this all is that the message as to waste reduction, somehow, is not reaching those groups of people, who would benefit from it the most financially.

In addition to that I have to ask as whether laziness could also be a factor; too lazy to take it home with them and then too lazy to wash it up. Sometimes I am entirely at a loss as to what part of the message people actually do not understand. Is the word “reuse” really such a complicated one?

© 2017