Wednesday, September 17, 2008

A very good thing to do, for yourself, and for the planet

I found this on morsbags.com, and I personally love the idea! In their own words:
let’s do something positive to reduce the hideous number of plastic bags being used - 1 million are consumed per minute globally - of which hundreds of thousands end up in the oceans. the idea is to get together with people in your local community, drink wine and make reusable cloth bags (from old duvet covers, curtains from charity shops etc) and hand them out to the unsuspecting public for free on specified dates outside different supermarkets. meet new people, do something marvellous for the planet and beat other pods (groups) of baggers with your morsbag tally. go to www.morsbags.com to be a part of a wonderful thing! p.s. non-commercial/ non-profitable - just full of beneficial things for everyone, especially whales!

I have a plenty of old sheets and stuff, and I know lots of little tricks with sewing and colouring, so this could be real fun, especially if I got the kids at school involved. The instructions are really nice and simple so anyone can understand them, and you don't have to be an expert in sewing to make this. Are we, the generation of the biggest consumerists changing the history? Don't think so, at least not yet, but we can and it does not mean you have to make bags from old sheets, but it does mean that you have to do something.
Currently I am working hard on coming up with a solution how to have a few different bins for recycle-able stuff, so that it does not make my appartment look like a recycling plant, as well as saving up money to change all the bulbs I can change into those nice energy saving ones. They are really expensive over here, and my wage is not that big, but slowly I will build up, like a good girl. I am also thinking of taking the bus to work in the winter, currently I walk when I can, but during emergencies, like oversleeping I jump in the car and drive there. So I have to learn to take the bus, that would save me money on petrol and make me a better person towards the environment.


I am thinking of sticking this in my classroom:



P.S. Just so you know I already don't use plastic bags, I use my nice cloth bags instead, I'm just thinking of how to get other people into it!


1 comment:

Richard said...

The main problem is that people are consumers. They consume and then discard. It is very alien to my mentality (mind you, I was raised by parents who lived through post war Poland, so the notion of scarcity was very real to them).

Many people seem to think that recycling is a good option. However, plastics do no recycle very well (as far as I am concerned, they do not, so ... plastics recycling is a myth. You can recycle plastics, but this requires using quite toxic chemicals and lots of energy to breakdown the plastics into their base components).

The two main things must be reducing and reusing. Recycling should be considered the last and most unattractive option. Yet, people (my wife included) seem to feel morally good about themselves, drinking bottleg water in plastic bottles and then "recycling" the bottle. (don't get me on the whole bottle water thing. Just let it be known, I am quite against it. Access to clean water is a basic human right and should not be commoditized).

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