The Plastic Bag New Year's Resolution

The Plastic Bag New Year's Resolution

‘You have to make up your mind either to make sense or to make money, if you want to be a designer.’ R. Buckminster Fuller

The decision to abandon economic desires and adopt ethical choice is by no means simple. However, it is precisely this message that is continuously being drummed into society at present. We, as ethical citizens, are supposed to be able to give up economic gain and become more primitive in our style of living. I believe this factor to be the cause of our environmental concerns. When a dramatic change is required and demanded from a person, it is natural for the person to take no notice of the demanded change. On the other hand, maybe this is not true. For if the change is to higher ground, the change is most likely to be welcomed. However, in the circumstance of environmental change, the step to be taken is in the wrong direction and therefore it becomes easy to relate to the person that takes no notice of change. I feel it important to state at this point that in no way do I disagree with the idea that climate change is taking place. Climate change is a vast concern for modern day life and steps need to be taken in order to avert the disaster. However, my argument is concerned with the manner in which, as a society, we are being demanded to change in a manner that is incorrect.

‘Chucking away is only one option but it is an option made easier by the logic of seriality: just get another one.’ Gay Hawkins

It is the remark that once one is set in a state of mind it becomes difficult to remove yourself from being that way inclined. It is for this reason I disagree with the idea put forward in The Plastic Bag New Year's Resolution, that we need to encourage people to ‘rethink’ the way they interact with products. Instead encouraging ideas such as reducing, reusing and recycling help people feel they are adding to their lives rather than making one feel more primitive. It certainly appears that to ‘rethink’ leads us to a reduced style of living and a style of living that is more primitive than the one we live today. No carrier bags, no central heating, no jet set travelling. Therefore, I believe it wrong to think we can just simply change the way we exist.
At present there are attempts to persuade large companies such as Nike to re-think the way they manufacture and fundamentally carry out business. In Global companies the attempt is to make them more localised and therefore reduce on fuel as well as transportation.
I find myself back at the start, where the choice of economic want against ethical belief is apparent. It seems hard to fathom why large global companies would be willing to give up cheap labour as well as global resources in order to save a long term cause.
This is not to say ‘give up.’ Because as the white paper document, that is produced by the government shows, it is possible to help reduce waste and help support recycling. Previously I took part in research into The Yellow Pages recycling scheme and their rates of recycling have improved by 75% in the past five years due to government legislation. This proves that even though my main argument has been anti-rethinking and pro reducing, reusing and recycling it is not to say there are not ways of improving the environmental standards of large companies.


Packard, Vance. The Waste Makers (London: Mckay, 1960).

Papanek, Victor J. Design for the Real World: human ecology and social change (London: Thames and Hudson, 1995).

Hawkins, Gay. Plastic Bags: Living with rubbish (London: Sage, 2001)

www.dca.gov.uk (white paper)