Like many of my readers, no doubt, I have to turn off the authoritarian madness surrounding coronavirus every day.
There is one silver lining to the Chi-vi, though: the comeback of disposable plastic.
Last year in England, Conservative (?!) MPs disparaged ‘the scourge of disposable plastic’.
Those of us who find plastic bags and straws useful smirked.
It turns out that, with coronavirus, we had the last — and best — laugh. Never mind if it’s temporary, we have found that disposable plastic bags and containers are actually hygienic. We know from the spread of e. Coli since the advent of reusable tote bags.
With the prevalence of coronavirus in March, merchants in England did a re-think on reusable bags. They give customers plastic bags now, in store and for home delivery.
The United States also recognises the questionable hygiene surrounding reusable tote bags:
Good, good.
People are hardly likely to take care of their tote bags, are they?
Said bags sit on the pavement, the bus or train floor and the manky kitchen counter before they sit on a supermarket checkout counter. Errgh.
Even reusable cups — the latest eco-friendly fad before coronavirus — have been banned in various establishments, and rightly so:
Good, good.
In England, some supermarkets began to deliver home shopping orders in paper bags before coronavirus. The same supermarkets switched back to sturdy plastic when lockdown was announced on Monday, March 23. Even now that lockdown has been largely lifted, supermarkets are still packaging customer purchases in plastic bags.
My weekly — not to mention monthly — waste was much less with plastic bags. Although my butcher, thankfully, still uses them, my fishmonger has switched to paper.
With the butcher, I can rinse the plastic packaging — a flimsy white bag — and dump it into the waste bin which has items I cannot recycle. Those bags are very small. If I am concerned about any residual odour during the summer months, I put the rinsed bags into a clean plastic bag from a local shop and pop them in the bin. Those clean plastic bags contained vegetables or other items I purchased in other shops. I am reusing them.
With the fishmonger, it’s an entirely different story. He bundles everything in three pieces of paper wrap and puts purchases in a flimsy paper shopping bag, which starts bursting at the bottom before I can get it in the door.
‘Those shopping bags are expensive’, he says.
I’d rather he went back to the plastic sealable bags he once used. I had next to no waste. I could even give each bag a good soapy wash after removing the fish and could reuse them at least three times apiece. Where’s the waste there?
With his new paper system, I have to bundle a load of smelly paper into one trash bag that never used to have any fishmonger’s waste. This means that when I normally would not have had to put the non-recyclable waste bin out, I do now — after visiting his shop.
I tried to explain to him that paper production is water-intensive and equally expensive in other ways. However, his two daughters, and no doubt his wife, have convinced him that this is the way to go.
There is another aspect of disposable plastic that relates to coronavirus: disposable masks, which are becoming increasingly more mandatory in various nations in various circumstances!
Strangely, those who support the wearing of masks — even the disposable plastic ones — also support carrying one’s own tote bags and reusable drinks containers.
You could not make this up.
16 comments
August 14, 2020 at 12:00 am
daughnworks247
Ohhhhh, the irony.
It is funny that most people are unaware of their own hypocrisy.
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August 14, 2020 at 12:09 am
churchmouse
I’m shaking my darned head about it all. Grrr.
By the way, I’m listening to RMC (French radio) and there’s likely to be a new Gilets Jaunes (Yellow Jackets) demo on Saturday, September 12, because the post-COVID economy in France is not good for small to medium mom-and-pop businesses, especially restaurants.
Sylvie is in Brittany and runs a restaurant. She says that family-owned restaurants like hers are in trouble. The person responding to the following tweet says: ‘The anger is still there. Nothing has changed. Returning on September 12’:
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August 14, 2020 at 7:10 am
Doonhamer
Put a 5 pence tax on face masks to stop them littering the countryside and being a hazard to livestock.
It worked for plastic bags.
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August 14, 2020 at 4:43 pm
churchmouse
Five pence on £2.99 isn’t going to make a lot of difference though, is it?
I am sorry to read that masks are littering the countryside. Terrible for farmer and livestock alike. Ugh.
Masks will be our new litter; they were in France, at least initially a couple of months ago.
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August 14, 2020 at 3:56 pm
formerdem
Churchmouse, here are my silver linings: home schooling is up, peer pressure is down, gardens are up, nursing homes are down, authoritarian politicians are outed, plastic bags are out, supply chains coming home, tax base of authoritarian states is about to plummet, personal skill w IT is up, obesity is now seen as life threatening, gyms are down, online exercise is up, supply chains coming home, we now know who are our friends in real life actually are, national staycations will foster all kinds of odd little out of the way things, expensive colleges are on the way out, privacy and borders of all kinds are up.
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August 14, 2020 at 4:45 pm
churchmouse
Wow, what a great comment.
Would you mind if I borrowed it as a guest post for next week? I’ll give you full credit.
Please let me know either way. Many thanks.
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August 18, 2020 at 1:02 am
formerdem
I am honored, and do it any way that suits you!
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August 18, 2020 at 10:19 am
churchmouse
Excellent — many thanks!
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August 24, 2020 at 10:12 pm
churchmouse
Your comment is now up as today’s guest post.
Thanks again!
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August 14, 2020 at 4:00 pm
formerdem
And we are pining for Jesus, like the prodigal son. I don’t know whether you get to go to Mass or not. If so, tell him I sent my love. He sees my heart but yah, we live in our bodies and I am tired of not seeing HIm in person. Blazing wrathful to be forbidden. Blazing.. They could have solved it. Didn’t care. I take note.
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August 14, 2020 at 4:52 pm
churchmouse
I haven’t been back yet, mostly because masks are mandatory and, even in our shops, as a regular customer, I have managed to avoid wearing them.
So, I’m still getting my head around masking up in church, signing a register, etc., etc. There’s one service on Sunday now, so I will probably not be a known entity by most of the others attending. We’re also between vicars, so there’s a change of clergy every Sunday.
I did not understand the last part of your message, beginning with ‘Blazing wrathful …’ Please elaborate, if you can.
In any event, pray (e.g. the Lord’s Prayer) and take time out to talk to Jesus silently — or out loud, if you like. In time, you will be talking to Him regularly.
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August 18, 2020 at 1:03 am
formerdem
I meant I am madder every week that goes by, that people don’t care at all about denying us Christ.
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August 18, 2020 at 10:21 am
churchmouse
Okay, got it. Thanks for clarifying!
You are so right.
I’ll have a couple posts on that topic starting this afternoon (your time).
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August 14, 2020 at 9:06 pm
Why tote bags are not necessarily better for our health or the environment | Churchmouse Campanologist
[…] Yesterday, I made a case for plastic carrier bags. […]
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August 17, 2020 at 9:02 pm
The cost to the environment of making paper bags | Churchmouse Campanologist
[…] The one positive out of coronavirus: disposable plastic makes a comeback […]
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August 24, 2020 at 9:01 pm
Guest post: more positives from coronavirus | Churchmouse Campanologist
[…] of my readers, formerdem, left a comment last week on my post ‘The one positive out of coronavirus’, which is worth sharing with […]
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