Being green

[indalo]

Many of you may have seen the attached or similar but I'm posting it anyway in case you missed it "doing the rounds" on the web.


Checking out at the supermarket recently, the young cashier suggested I should bring my own carrier bags because plastic bags weren't good for the environment. I apologised and explained, "We didn't have this green thing back in my earlier days." The cashier responded, "That's our problem today. Your generation did not care enough to save our environment for future generations."

She was right about one thing -- our generation didn't have the green thing in “our” day. So what did we have back then…? After some reflection and soul-searching on "our" day here's what I remembered we did have....

Back then, we returned milk bottles, fizzy pop bottles and beer bottles to the shop. The shop sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilised and refilled, so it could use the same bottles repeatedly. So they really were recycled.
But we didn't have the green thing back in our day.

We walked up stairs, because we didn't have an escalator or lift in every store and office building. We walked to the supermarket and didn't climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two minutes up the road. But she was right. We didn't have the green thing in our day.

Back then, we washed the baby's nappies because we didn't have the throw-away kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy-gobbling machine burning up 220 volts -- wind and solar power really did dry our clothes back in our early days. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing. But that young lady is right. We didn't have the green thing back in our day.

Back then, we had one TV, or radio, in the house -- not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief (remember them?), not a screen the size of England. In the kitchen, we blended and stirred by hand because we didn't have electric machines to do everything for us. When we packaged a fragile item to send in the post, we used screwed up old newspapers to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap. Back then, we didn't fire up an engine and burn petrol just to cut the lawn. We used a push mower that ran on human power. We exercised by working so we didn't need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity. But she's right. We didn't have the green thing back then.

We drank from a fountain when we were thirsty instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water. We refilled writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and we replaced the razor blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull. But we didn't have the green thing back then.

Back then, people took the bus, and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their mum into a 24-hour taxi service. We had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances. And we didn't need a computerised gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 2,000miles out in space in order to find the nearest pizza joint.

But isn't it sad the current generation laments how wasteful we old folks were just because we didn't have the green thing back then?

Indalo

 

[Blew it]

Lew Rakowsky replied on Facebook:

"The uncomfortable truth is that "old folks" who grew up in a more frugal time are also part of a generation that introduced and institutionalized a disposable economy. To wit, the economic expansion of the post-war years was fueled by conspicuous consumption of mass-produced goods that had a planned obsolescence. This same generation of Americans gave up all the frugality they inherited from their parents in the name of convenience, comfort, and modernity. Sadly, we're all complicit in this (no moral high-ground here), but the young woman in the store has the right idea."

 

[flecc]

All very true Indalo, and indeed you missed out some items. We hand turned mangles to squeeze water out of washed clothes and them hung them on washing lines. Now they are spin-dried and often then tumble-dried, the latter very greedy for current.

As for Lew Rakowsky's response, we old fogies mass produced fully repairable goods and set up parts and repair organisations to ensure good lives from cars, TVs, washing machines etc. It's the much younger generations who turned them into disposables and were too lazy to bother with repairs, in the same way that they are too lazy to wash nappies or cook meals.

Example from many decades ago: Philips, the Dutch electrical giant, had their UK consumer electricals division head office at City House, London Road, Croydon. A couple of miles distant on Purley Way, Croydon they had C.E.S. (Combined Electrical Services), their division that held the UK spares for all the wide variety of electricals they produce from TVs to washing machines etc, indeed their TV factory was there too. C.E.S. held everything necessary for repairs down to the smallest individual component, as I know from getting them from there.

There are still some bright spots, repair organisations for washing machines and some other items, and there is the enterprising espares, which was set up by online electrical dealer Dabs. They have a prodigious range of electrical spares for appliances going back many years, plus a good website to suit.

espares electrical parts online

 

[mike killay]

The world has moved. Remember chopping firewood, carrying coal, who would know what a blue bag is these days? The old highway code carried whip signals for horse drivers.
As Flecc says, you could repair things. I remember going into Halfords with a broken cross piece from inside a Sturmey Archer. Without a word, the man behind the counter reached into a huge nest of small wooden drawers and brought one out.
Of course, in those days, you took a shopping bag for clean things and a basket for vegetables because they were generally still covered in earth.