Ban The Bag! (What We Do In Our Free Time)
posted February 1st, 2009 by Stiv Wilson
Today, Ian (publisher) and myself stood outside in the cold, gathering signatures with our Surfrider Chapter to ban the plastic handled shopping bag in our hometown, Portland, Oregon. If you’ve read the piece on the horror of plastic in our marine environment in the current issue, then you already know why. Yes, we practice what we preach with regard to activism in our communities. If you’re a portland reader, and would like to sign the petition, go here and spread the word!
Everything that is “good” should be mandatory, and everything “bad” should be forbidden.
Yes, Alex, especially when education isn’t funded, and pollution affects lives. Do you think seat belts should be mandatory? You can talk a libertarian line if you’d like, but when a floating plastic garbage patch has grown to the size of the continental United States 500 miles due west of San Fran where its fragments outnumber plankton 6 to 1, and 95% of the population of first world countries don’t even know it exists, you’ve got to do something. Dead Kennedy’s had it right: Give me convenience or give me death.
Yes, in an ideal world. But we have become dependent, and there are ramifications. Peak Oil understands this. Sustainability at a community level for all elvels of community. Ramming something through with out thinking it through – man cannot live on Swiss cheese alone – leaves expensive holes… and you know those with the “mostest” (the petroleum interests) will still fill those unless we have the plan in place.
What about the plastic wrapping in the old ciggie pacs, lads?
I’d like to see Surfrider follow in PDX footsteps and encourage other chapters to make some noise. Fuck Plastic….
I am not against the use of plastic. Obviously, I depend on it every day for a variety of reasons. What I am against is the notion that uses and practices are absolute. Don’t use when you don’t have to, or when there is a more efficient alternative. Generally, a little effort to conserve isn’t really that much effort, and a little can go a long way. And finally, people need to get over this bizarre idea that those who seek to conserve are somehow hippies or anti-establishment. Stop getting bothered by conservation because you somehow feel that it is a direct threat to your rights as a human being to use whatever you want, whenever and wherever you want. And finally, if you feel that your actions have no influence on the course of this planet or the environment then, well, that is just sad. Funny story here – http://blog.robertpayne.net/2009/05/21/thank-you/