Today is Earth Day. I joke in my novel Whispers for Terra that in my neck of the woods I can expect ❄️❄️ on Earth Day. Yep. Two inches so far. Alas, true spring will come soon. The arriving geese remind me so.
The NO PASTIC JULY challenge was nine months ago. I am still laboring in the struggle to eliminate plastic in my life. I have made gains in the food storage department but the pain persists in others. Grrrr…Amazon packaging, supplement containers.
Have you noticed green/eco mentions in movies and TV shows? Have you noticed flagrant opposites? I have.
If you watch the goofy action romance called Ghosted, watch for Chris Evans who plays a farmer. Early in the movie he mentions the soil and food quality while selling at a farmers market. While flirting with the female lead, he drives home a point about caring for plants. My husband (who should write screen plays) predicts that it is the farmer’s very knowledge of plant life and their DNA that will cause him to be the hero and save the world. Fiction+green mentions=a planet win.
Flip that coin. I am reading a book where someone is pulling a single use water bottle from the frig in every other scene. Couldn’t they at least go to the sink and refill their plastic Nalgene bottle? Yet, I turn the pages. I really enjoy the author’s writing.
This leads me to the blame issue. Who is to blame? Is it the single use plastic user? Is it the writer who can romanticize it? Is the company who makes the single use plastic bottle? Is it the marketers getting rich when their single use water bottle marketing scheme send sales soaring. Is it us, the consumer being sucked in? I suppose like usual, there’s enough blame to spread around. Consumers-manufacturers-marketers…..
Enter companies who either cared or companies who listened to consumers who care. I am not promoting Prana in general but I am promoting the packaging in which my bathing suit arrived yesterday. Arrived in a paper bag. Bathing suit top, in a paper envelope. Bathing suit bottom rolled with a cute string tied around it-no packaging. The bathing suit was made from recycled nylon. Kudos Prana.
Flip that coin with me one more time. I buy some pricey collagen. Sells in an 8″ tall cylindrical container. It has, about 4″ of powder inside. That’s 4″ of empty plastic. The responsible consumer in me wrote them suggesting they downsize on the plastic. Just make the freaking container smaller, narrower….anything to use less plastic! The response? It is necessary because the powder settles. 50% settling of their product. Call me a doubter. Could it be their price is so high that marketing guides them to give the appearance of more product?? Ugh, yet I buy it, don’t I? I have switched brands. Just not as good dammit. I do however, buy another powdery product, it holds the same 16oz quantity. It is in a smaller plastic container. Hmmmm. 🤔🧐 Is it like one of those mystery spots…I think not.
Who’s to blame? What do you think?
Anyhoo…Give some love to the earth today.
Minderings, a place for the wanderings of your mind. 