The Plastic Bag New Year's Resolution

a.k.a. Sam's Inhumanity to Sam

I would agree with Sam Clarke’s opinion in some respects. We have two whole cupboards in the kitchen chock-a-block with compressed Sainsbury’s carrier bags. But it seems strange now, after the lecture, that the flimsy little things can conjure equal measures of guilt or smugness in me in my sub-weekly shop top-up.





I used to be content that I wasn’t as bad as most people, seeing as I use public transport, recycle and usually remember to take the TV off standby. But now, since I’ve began researching for our live project, I’ve reassessed my lifestyle. I didn’t think that perhaps a microwave on standby was as bad as a TV, It didn’t occur to me our chronic over-iced freezer was anything but annoying and I didn’t really have any qualms with leaving my phone to charge overnight, or owning an electric toothbrush. Now I do, it’s left me relatively miserable. This is fine, I guess, so long as it’s for the greater good, it’s just that life‘s a lot simpler when its rooted in ignorance. I’m worrying now about having the light on whilst I’m in the room, whether I should give up meat, which I love, and whether or not I really need to shower (though I am, to reassure people, still having regular showers).

I’m not living a self-sufficient, disposability-free, carbon-neutral, Felicity Kendal kind of a lifestyle. So what if my carrier bags are recycled? - if their contents have been freighted from across the world: Australian wine, American Cola, Chinese packaging, surely carrier bags are the tip of the slushy iceberg. Pushed to the limits, I have experienced the seductive apathy that Sam mentions in his blog.

But I would disagree with Sam’s general anti-rethinking policy, not least because, as Designers, re-thinking is really what we’re all about. Additionally, “Reduce, re-use and recycle” aren’t alternatives to rethinking, they’re components. Consuming is in itself an issue, and it can’t be resolved by ‘positive’ consumption. To use analogy, consuming coffee doesn’t really cancel out consuming beer, it just makes you numb and tense simultaneously (if you don’t want to get drunk, don’t drink the beer in the first place).

Rethinking our lifestyles cannot be dismissed because it is difficult, or demanding. Of course, we don’t really have much choice as to whether or not we will change our lifestyles, as the IPCC has shown, the change is already upon us. We only really get to choose how: sooner for the better, or later for the worse.

http://www.ipcc.ch/