We didn't have the green thing in our day (did we)

Posh Pete · Post by **Posh Pete** » Thu Jan 05, 2012 7:28 pm

At the checkout in Tescos recently a young checkout girl suggested we bring our own shopping bags because plastic bags aren't good for the environment.

Apologizing we explained, "We didn't have this green thing back in my day." To which the clerk responded, "The problem today is that your generation did not care enough about environment and consider future generations, because you didn't have the green thing in your day."

She was right about one thing -- our generation didn't have the green thing in ?Our day".

Back then, milk was delivered to the door by the milkman and we put the empties out to be collected and we returned, pop bottles and beer bottles to the shop. The dairy and the shop then washed and sterilized and refilled them, 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 in every store and office building. We walked to the shops and didn't climb into a 300 bhp machine every time we had to go two blocks.

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 also used wash cloths not nappy wipes. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy gobbling machine burning up lots of watts -- 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 pocket handkerchief (remember them?), not a screen the size of Essex. 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 mail, we used wadded up old newspapers to cushion it, not expanded foam chips or 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 we still didn't have the green thing back then....!

We drank water from a tap 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 sure 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 mums into a 24-hour taxi service. We had one electrical socket in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances. Our phone lasted for years and years, we didn't turn them in every year or two to get a phone that requires recharging with electricity every day. And we didn't need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 2,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest pizza shop etc...

But isn't it sad the current generation laments on the wastefulness of our generation, because we 'apparently' didn't have the green thing back then?

Probably because our lifestyle was green enough and we didn't need it (except for two stroke triples of course).

Smokie · Post by **Smokie** » Thu Jan 05, 2012 8:41 pm

So True Pete!

Bloody Young un,s!!

Neil the Don · Post by **Neil the Don** » Thu Jan 05, 2012 9:29 pm

Yeh, Yeh !!!

AND , those plastic bags are made from a distillation of the Gas that you see being burnt off ,from that big boom-arm on an Oil Rig. So its actually greener to use it to make carrier bags..
( And it saves on heavier black bin bags , if you chuck your "-recyclable rubbish into the supermarket bag too . )
DOUBLE GREEN .

Now, lets start a thread on how encouraging tobbacco smoking will save us a fortune on the Pension funds by killing off folk earlier.............

Charlie Brown · Post by **Charlie Brown** » Thu Jan 05, 2012 9:31 pm

That was pretty thought provoking Pete

I just can't imagine this generation getting interested in collecting and restoring any type of machinery way down the line either

Whose going to look after our triples then

malc87 · Post by **malc87** » Thu Jan 05, 2012 10:16 pm

Ive been saving "The green thing" as a page filler for the club magazine for ages

Posh Pete · Post by **Posh Pete** » Thu Jan 05, 2012 11:47 pm

Awww Malc. Sorry, how was I to know....? I just saw it and in a flash I thought it was apt for a web site entry.

Should have thought 'Magazine'..... and yes it would have bee a great article too.

So, does that mean I owe you a page filler, or an article..?

Eric · Post by **Eric** » Fri Jan 06, 2012 7:03 am

As you said in the past there are a lot of members who do not have computers so you could still use it.

malc87 · Post by **malc87** » Fri Jan 06, 2012 7:34 am

Posh Pete wrote:Awww Malc. Sorry, how was I to know....? I just saw it and in a flash I thought it was apt for a web site entry.

Should have thought 'Magazine'..... and yes it would have bee a great article too.

So, does that mean I owe you a page filler, or an article..?

YEP

Rubbadub · Post by **Rubbadub** » Fri Jan 06, 2012 8:26 am

as dara o briain said, environmental problems will be solved by engineers or scientists sitting in a back room somewhere, not by a bloody beaurocrat or politician brainwashing a bunch of meja graduadutes into becoming eco warriors.

Guess thats why she is sitting behind the till at a supermarket, an institution that generates so much packaging waste and food waste due to their own internal logistics, and this nonsense of sell by dates. Silly mare.

OOOOOH RANT much?

Olde Coney · Post by **Olde Coney** » Fri Jan 06, 2012 11:52 am

You are right Pete....

I reckon that I'll have to enroll at college this year on a course designed to educate me how to get into some of the packaging that stuff is packed in these days

husson73 · Post by **husson73** » Fri Jan 06, 2012 12:27 pm

true, so true

Post by **Wolfie** » Fri Jan 06, 2012 12:45 pm

It's our recycle bins today... we missed the last one due to the winds (and Christmas) we have a box and bin liner full of plastic packaging...

Supposedly for recycling.

I don't imagine they wash and reuse it like a bottle, so there will be a lot of energy consumed in transport and/or/if they melt/burn/reform it into whatever, but I suspect it will end up on a beach in India.

Mitsui Spy · Post by **Mitsui Spy** » Fri Jan 06, 2012 6:55 pm

That's right Wolfie. People don't realise there's nothing 'green' about recycling at all.

Take glass bottles. We drive 'em to the bottle bank and smash 'em. A big truck takes them to a factory and washes, sorts and melts them and then turns them into .....guess what......yep - bottles! Exactly what they were before we recycled them. Brain dead.

'Re-using' should be the mantra for the next generation, not recycling but I can't see that going down so well.

TallyB · Post by **TallyB** » Fri Jan 06, 2012 8:40 pm

Our bins were emptied yesterday, the black one for household ribbish and the blue for recycling. BOTH into the SAME lorry.

Barrie · Post by **Barrie** » Fri Jan 06, 2012 8:49 pm

strange.........but true!

Vince · Post by **Vince** » Fri Jan 06, 2012 8:54 pm

And one other thing

Fashion, the constant drive to throw away your belongings and buy the latest thing, look or gadget. 99% of this stuff is made outside the UK in sweat shops, low wage factories in China, shipped and sold by bods on minimum wage.

Consider new bikes, plastic, CPU controlled, will they be around in 40 years?

On the plastic bag case. How may free-be bags can you produce for the cost/impact of 1 re-usable one?

We re-use the supermarket free-be?s as bin liners and poo bags for the dogs.

Not to mention bloody Ikea, throw away furniture, long ago families brought major furniture items for life.

We live in a throw away world, so I don?t feel bad putting another litre of oil (smokeless) in the old girl, and thrashing her.

Mitsui Spy · Post by **Mitsui Spy** » Fri Jan 06, 2012 9:42 pm

People think we're freaks.

My children wear (some) clothes that were my wife's when she was a child. They have books that were ours when we were little and toys too. My wife's still got several bicycles that she grew up with waiting for them to grow into.

I wear clothes until they're f**ked, not until they're 'last season'.

I've still got the first bike I ever had. I was 10 years old and gave my mate 10p for it in 1975. A Philips Gadabout De-luxe 3 no less!

Our Christmas tree's on it's 10th year of being dragged in and out of the house each year.

I guess it'll all change when they hit their teens.