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You Buy, the Sea Pays

#1

You Buy, the Sea Pays

Most of our bountiful planet's water is in the ocean, which - humans, take a bow - are a calamity: Up to 26 million tons of plastic packaging and other debris threatens the life of our oceans and its hundreds of thousands of fish, birds and other marine creatures. For the 20th anniversary of its Ocean Initiatives, the Surfrider Foundation has launched a new campaign to remind us, "Ocean pollution begins with the purchase of the object which will eventually be discarded as waste" - you buy, the sea pays.

#2

The denizens of the political process seem to have grown widely silent on this and many more issues facing us all. We are getting a flood of new studies and reports that show us the depth at which the profit motive rules our world and the depth of destruction allowing that renders, though when faced even with immense numbers of protesters in the streets, the voice of the people is responded to only with glacial like mere acknowledgments by the ruling elites at best, none of which is adequate.

The world has been changed by the reality of burgeoning transparency and the politicians must learn to respond finally by taking up the mantle of their undeniable obligations of responsibility, or they must get out of the way and submit to a revolutionary new ruling way that protects the Earth from the human indifference that has so long been the norm of the ruling class.

#3

So, what would a world with out all these consumer products/waste, look like? Are people really willing to give up these everyday items… to save the earth under their feet?.. I would like to think so, but I do not believe they will… most do not even consider any of this… against their need for the next new make up product or manly car product. Hell, even men are using more cosmetics/ hair dye, mousse, gel.
When you go into a store, supermarket, drug store… and just look at all the containers, it is mind boggling to them view that in terms of ALL THOSE THAT EXIST IN EVERY STORE IN THE WORLD, especially the western developed countries… it is so stupid… I have small idea to slow that down, but, I cannot do it, because it takes, money which I do not have(to make my own store like this…)
Any bulk food store that sells things in containers, is not doing their job. There is one in a rather well known town about 35 miles from me. They have so many items in small containers, they may as well give up the bulk part. Then, they sell plastic containers for the bulk section. To me, any container you have at home from some other store, should be used when going to purchase from a bulk food store… Yogurt containers or cottage cheese containers, make a good one for this. Now, think of all those laundry detergent containers that are so sturdily made. We should be able to buy our ( green) detergent in bulk, too. Also, shampoo, conditioner… and use as many natural products that you already have at home. A grocery trip, would be bringing in about what 10/ 20 containers for a family, to pour new stuff into.
So, some would say, “I do not have time for all that!!” I say, that with all the changes we need to make over all, especially in our economic system, people would have time. Working in your own local area, with in walking distance or biking distance, or working from home, would be the answer to that. Multitudes of people doing cottage industry would put a stop to our driving sickness and help do away with cars.
Hell, we are going to be there eventually anyway… through collapse, why not manage it on the way down.

#4

Good points, plus, most of the stuff people buy in the small containers is ACTUALLY NOT NEEDED.

i have not used “shampoo” or “conditioner” in decades. i buy bars of soap with no wrappers, and i wash myself with soap about once a week. Even that is not all really “needed,” my brother stopped using ANY soap on his hair years ago, he just rinses it and then brushes it out.

But when i suggest to my friends that they don’t need all those plastic containers of shampoo and conditioner in a million different forms, they all react like “Oh you just don’t understand the specific needs of my hair!”

i’ve brought up the possibility with people i live with of living without bringing home any new plastic containers. The conversation never goes very far.

At least we can get local bread in plain brown Kraft paper, not plastic bags, but still folks come home with bread in plastic bags. Like you say, it’s not just that one bag, or even the bags in that one store, it is BILLIONS OF PLASTIC BAGS.

People need to fight back against the “convenience” of the vast majority of the “cheap plastic crap” and all the other useless junk that permeates our economic lives. Like, thirty years ago!

#5

Do you ever ask your friends or passers-by how you smell? I would look and smell and have the matted-down disheveled hair of a homeless person if I only bathed once a week - especially in summer.

I thought that I was getting extreme only showering every 3 days.

One can practice good low-environmental impact hygiene without such extreme measures. I buy Dr. Bronner’s free trade liquid castile soap (made with Palestinian olive oil) in bulk - refilling the same container, at my food co-op (getting there via electric motor scooter or public transit). it works great as both soap and shampoo.

But regardless, how is so much plastic getting in the sea to begin with? It’s not the use of the plastic, it is the disposal of it that is this problem (CO2 and pollution from plastics manufacture being a separate problem). All my plastic waste goes in a recycling bin, and any that might slip by gets buried in a landfill. Most of the plastic finding its way to the sea comes from the developing world, and lesser developed areas of the US like E. Kentucky and West Virginia (I’ve stood at the confluence and watched the floating plastic trash getting disgorged out the Kentucky River into Ohio River - ultimately ending up in the Gulf of Mexico). Fixing this should be one of the easier problems we face.

#7

I believe that the New World Order assault on our beautiful planet is more than simple human indifference and greed. I see the bipartisan enforcement of earth-deadly, corporate-friendly mandates as blatant attacks on life itself, deliberately planned by The-Powers-That-Be for mass extinction of all species and ending with a far-right, faux religious version of a Biblical Armageddon. Meanwhile the ignored masses are told to spend, spend, spend on trendy trash and sit back in stunned silence to lament.

Can we talk about the obvious and deliberate poisoning of our food, air and water supply by the imperial mandate of Monsanto and the MIC? For thousands of years, farmers composted their wastes and saved their now high-jacked ancestral seed line with an eye to the future. Today, farmers are forbidden to save viable seed for future planting and required to buy Monsanto-created-and-copyrighted genetically-altered seed each year. This toxic product, protected by law against accurate labeling, is forced on an uninformed public.

What will happen as farmers eventually are unable to afford the yearly cost of replacing seed stock and existing or affordable seed stock for many crops become extinct? Considering the worsening effects of extreme corporate politics and weather patterns, world-wide corporate takeover of necessary and affordable supplies will be overwhelming. Arable farmland will be swallowed up by massive single-crop commercial farms and like breathable air and drinkable water, a sustainable food supply will become unavailable.

The deliberate damage to our ecosystem is the most mysterious decision of all. If not corrected soon, it will destroy all living things that inhabit our world including the sociopathic 1% and their future generations.

I would like to know the real motive from our bought-and-paid-for single party for condemning all to an unlivable world, and what devil-spawn convinced our Nazi-inspired government that this was a good idea, for anyone?

#8

I, too, have pondered and pondered upon this question. I cannot fathom such a mind. As such, I have concluded that they are simply insane and completely deluded. As Derrick Jensen says, “If insanity means being out of touch with physical reality, then we don’t even need a to use pejorative definition of insanity.”

Even so, I would like to know what they think they want.