Bagging A Sustainable Future

"Amma if only all my customers fall in line with you I would save an amount of Rs.500 on a daily basis from two of my fruit shops in this market." said the fruit seller after his earlier unbelievable expression on seeing my cloth bags for the fruits!

But he continued "Amma do you believe that but for these plastic bags trading in general would take a big hit? People love plastic bags? It's not just fruits, flowers vegetables groceries why even medicines thrive on plastic.."

It is true. Crunchies kept in plastic bags retain their crispiness! Groceries remain fresh inside the bags! But the damages it causes to mother earth, seas and the oceans and the creatures there in  cause are innumerable!

Better be alone than in bad company!

People look down upon me  in the grocery shop as a strange creature when I bring out my cloth bags for various items.

 "Why carry bags when the shop keeper willingly provides you as many bags as you like?" enquired a lady.  As we started talking about plastics she was dumbstruck  and  revealed that  she was the headmistress of a suburban school and  fervently requested me to come over to her school to talk about the consequences of plastic usage. But her request remained just that. With  her heavy work load, her priorities might have changed! Hoping against hope I wished  that she had addressed her students in this regard and made at least her school a plastic free zone!!

 For the same reason I avoid supermarkets as much as possible. Packs and packs of varied items which could be easily be sold loosely fill the shelves! But still certain items have to be bought there and I too become a sinner in this regard.

I went to a very grand wedding reception.  The mouthwatering  mutton biryani was a great hit. Chicken gravy was delicious. Apart from the two ghee laden sweets  the high  quality ice cream was on the dessert menu. In short it was a sumptuous feast! The vegetarian feast was an equally grand one!

In India, especially in the south,  serving  a meal  to a guest in a  pristine green banana leaf is the traditional and respectful way and it is more so for a feast on this grand scale.

In the above reception  the leaf was green but it was not a banana leaf! It was just a pretense, a waxy banana leaf manufactured with a combination of plastic and God knows what other material!  The chicken gravy was served in shimmering white thermocol (Polystyrene) bowl while cut fruits with ice cream were served in bigger bowls of the same genre  and the ghee laden sweets in little plastic cups!! To crown it all there was a plastic bottle of water!

These bogus leaves and the thermocol and plastic cups are cheap. Accepted. But in comparison with the lakhs of Rupees spent on biryani and its cohorts, the banana leaves and the beautiful  paan  tree barks bowls and cups would have cost  just a minuscule of the whole expense!!

 Is it the penny wise and pound foolish  economy? Or is it the ignorance about  spoiling mother earth? Or is it the attitude that the food has to be good but never mind  about the receptacle?

The level of indigestion mother earth is going through is enormous! While our digestive system takes six to eight hours  to assimilate the food  the plastics we throw at this GRAND LADY takes 400 HUNDRED  PLUS years to become part of her system!

When we took leave after the reception I kept  my mouth shut  in this regard lest I spoil the happy occasion.

But  when they came home to extend another invitation in that large family I had a  cordial discussion with them which was taken in the right spirit and as an add on  they said that they would definitely spread this important message among their big circle!

For the wedding reception our friends went a  step further  and astonished us by gifting away saplings to the guests. With plenty of choice the guests were invited to choose as many saplings as they liked! What a satisfying celebration!

I cringe whenever guests come home with fruit laden plastic bags but never open my mouth lest it hurts their affectionate gesture! I collect them, store them use them reuse them and re reuse them but never ever throw them. My helpers are also trained to follow my dictum.

MY WASTE BIN IS NEVER COVERED WITH BLACK PLASTIC BAG. All my food waste become part of my little  garden. And only the dry ones go to the bin.

Last year we hired a service apartment for a family get together for three relaxing days of rest and recuperation and  blabbering around sweet nothings  goaded with plenty of selfies!! We consciously avoided gathering in one house lest it would  involve loads of cooking for the lady  of the house. The service apartment came with complimentary  breakfast  and we planned to get lunch and dinner from outside.

Early next day morning there was a call from the reception if they could bring in  our breakfast. Salivating we  asked them to bring it all. And there arrived a dozen plus of  pristine  white trays with the same pristine white covers filled with south Indian goodies!! I was aghast!

THREE DAYS OF THESE THERMOCOL TRAYS WOULD BE CAPABLE OF CREATING A BIG MOUND OF  MASS DESTRUCTION!

And imagine the end result in case all the apartments were occupied!!!

My nephew, an IT wizard, vouched by the tastiest lunch he daily had in the road side stall in front of his office and said that this would be his treat to the gang. True to his words it was steaming hot  appetising  food but there was a glitch! This luncheon feast was much more abominable than the morning breakfast since we had to face loads of individually packed polythene carry bags starting from rice sambar rasam curd and assorted vegetables and crunchies! And the thought that we are going to fling all these bags into the reluctant mouth of the terrorised  GRAND LADY was horrifying.  One cannot imagine the number of road side stalls in the city and the number of packing they do on a daily basis!

We sat and thought over this phenomena which proved to be an annoyance to the otherwise happy gathering!  We found a solution wherein, my niece who was hosting the show decided to tell her dad to look for a caterer who could bring the food in vessels and give a  happy ending to our horror story!

We can witness this  routine affair in any vegetable market when around eleven' o clock in the morning the shop keepers start packing their various vegetables into small polythene bags and  send them to vantage points in the city where commuters going back home weary and tired find an easy solution to their cooking needs. The bus stands and the train stations  are crammed with these bags vegetables or fruits and are cheap at Rs.10. Thus on a daily basis thousands of disposable bags are thrown into the dust bins and gutters.

For years when we celebrated our annual day in our  organisation where our meticulous planning made sure that the yearly gift to the staff was given in a jute bag and the dinner was served in stainless steel  and melamine plates covered with round cut banana leaves  and water in paper cups! (Even though we know that we were responsible for felling off trees we had to choose the lesser of the two evils). And the minimum number of guests for these gatherings of parents and other family members were around 750.

I was indeed happy when the Tamil Nadu government announced the ban of every day plastic from 2019 on! But the proud announcement is just one part! Sub clauses of concessions  allowances and grants should not submerge the boat!

Your own experience and your effort to safe guard mother earth however small it might be is welcome as a precious add on to this blog! Reducing the usage of disposable plastic  starting from our own house will have great effect on sustainable ecosystem .

My cloth carry bag accompanies me wherever  I go.