Your Choices Don’t Matter
- Nicholas Ward
- Sep 7, 2022
- 3 min read
OPINION
Why personal responsibility for the environment is a lie.
By Nicholas Ward
Bring your own bag! Save 50c with your own cup! We care about the environment! Pay us to offset your carbon!
It seems every retailer today cares about the environment. Provided that the customer does all the work and absorbs all the costs.
And as more people tote reusable totes, and carry forever cups surely, we as Australians are making a difference to the mountains of trash and tons of CO2 we produce.
Well if the title didn’t tip you off. We’re not. But don’t feel bad because there is essentially nothing you can do about it.
Putting aside the fact that research shows that the carbon footprint of reusable bags is so much higher (50x) than plastic that the odds of your using it enough to offset that are slim to none.
There is another unavoidable fact about modern life that makes the idea of personal responsibility not only laughable but vaguely sinister.
Say you take your cotton tote to a big box electronics store. And buy a pair of headphones. As you cut through all plastic packaging and diligently make sure you are recycling what can be recycled you should know that you dear reader have just put more plastic into the ground than a bankrupt cosmetic surgeon.
For every item you buy there is a mountain of plastic hidden from view in the storerooms of every supermarket, hifi store, and coffee shop.
Every pair of headphones, or laptop, or speakers comes in wrapped in plastic for transport, within plastic boxes and plastic separators and surrounded by mountains of plastic bubble wrap.
This plastic is diligently cut off then thrown straight in the bin.
To be fair it isn’t the fault of stores. They order the product and stack the products. They can’t control Apple from putting four laptops in a box with enough plastic to kill every sea turtle in Australia.
The problem is we have been sold for decades the idea that if we just knuckle down we’ll solve our landfill issues. That it is up to all of us. That it is our consumerist culture.
But unless you are a hermit who weaves their own clothes and grows their own food that is not possible.
Every facet of modern life in Australia is deeply interwoven with mountains of garbage production. Simply the act of living your life creates more garbage than one can imagine.
Every time you precariously carry your groceries in your arms to avoid a plastic bag, there’s a dozen bags worth of plastic going straight to landfill. Every time you recycle a packet there are a hundred packets in the backroom that aren’t. Every drink you buy, burger you eat, or film you see, a small mountain of plastic and cardboard builds up uncontrollably.
Your environmental decisions mean nothing because there is no way people to opt out of this system.
You can go vegan. Only shop at local farmers markets. Only take public transport. But unless you become a recluse there is still a mountain of garbage following in your every step.
Yet the idea that it is the individual responsibility to deal with this is today promoted everywhere from malls to tv to the internet to the government.
It is little wonder that industry wants consumers to believe that buying more products and is what will deal with our garbage crisis.
This narrative of personal responsibility for controlling plastic waste was pioneered in 1953 by a secret industry lobbying group, Keep America Beautiful.
Keep America Beautiful a group founded by American Can Co, and joined by the likes of Coca Cola, and Owens Illinois Glass Co. Companies today synonymous with throw away culture.
Were these companies really concerned about the environment? Of course not. Keep America Beautiful was founded to prevent environmental legislation. Though various environmental groups were sucked in by the flashy advertisements the group quickly fell out with them when it worked against 'bottle bills' which would have forced producers back to the days of selling soft drinks in reusable containers.
KAB with its fake environmental credentials managed to tank these bills and branded environmental campaigners as 'communists'
This narrative of personal responsibility for waste spread to Australia in the 1970's.
As people were pushed to feel personally responsible the government was freed from making the difficult decisions that will actually deal with our out of control waste.
Germany has managed to massively curtail their wastefulness by simply putting the cost of trash onto producers and manufacturers.
Yet Australia still maintains the ridiculous façade that a BYOB policy will solve our ballooning garbage crisis.
The simple truth is that our way of life makes personal responsibility impossible.
But it seems that Australia is willing to do anything for the environment provided neither the government nor industry has to pay to do it.
Comentarios