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Jun 05 Take care of the old bags Fight plastic addiction without gahmen's help Neil Humphreys LIKE every British woman I've ever met, my mother stashed plastic bags. They were hidden away in a dark cupboard and I thought my mum might be a drug dealer as each bag contained a small white packet. One day, when she was out collecting her body weight in plastic bags, I ventured into the cupboard and fished out one of the bags. And do you know what was inside? More bloody plastic bags. She filled empty plastic bags with empty plastic bags! There were hundreds of them. Every time you opened the cupboard, you risked being suffocated by an avalanche of plastic. They were jammed in front of every other labour-saving device, which did at least mean they cushioned the blow when the ironing board fell forward and smacked you in the face. "Why keep so many carrier bags, mum?" I asked, as they pinned me to the carpet. We called them carrier bags in England. "Because you might need them in an emergency." . My sister and I never could appreciate how a mountain of melting plastic might help the family during a house fire. Nevertheless whenever there was a mini-crisis, my mother made the call. "The dog has done a smelly one on the kitchen floor." "Quick, grab a carrier bag." "The cat has brought in another sparrow from the back garden." "Quick, grab a carrier bag." "The next-door neighbour has had a heart attack, collapsed and fallen into his daffodils." "Quick, grab a carrier bag." To her credit, there was no waste. My mother has reused plastic bags since the days when people thought recycling meant going out on their bicycles twice. My wife is no different. She actually folds her bags into little triangles to maximise space in the drawer. They look like under-cooked samosas. But she turns down the offer of plastic bags in a mini-mart if she doesn't need them. Mini-mart owners here always mean well. But if you reject their kind offer of a free plastic bag, they often react as if you've asked permission to sleep with their daughter. "Don't wan' bag ah?" they ask, fighting back tears. "No need. It's only a toothbrush." "Never mind. Can take, ah." "No thanks. My wife will only spend four hours folding it into a samosa." We don't need a plastic bag to carry a toothbrush, do we? Apparently, we do. My Today colleague Lee U-Wen stirred up a hornets' nest recently with the revelation that Singapore consumes an estimated 40 billion bags a year. That's about 27 bags per person PER DAY. The story has unashamedly pointed the finger directly at the selfish "me, me, me" group in society and U-Wen deserves a National Day Award for that feat alone. But 27 bags per person per day?! Are some Singaporeans eating them? It's a shocking, damning statistic. Unfortunately, the reaction from the buck-passers came soon enough. "The gahmen should make supermarkets charge for plastic bags", the letter writers cried out in unison. "The gahmen must increase environmental awareness. The gahmen should chop off the hands of anyone who takes too many bags." . "Repeat offenders should be hung — by a rope made from recycled bags — from the lamppost outside the supermarket as a deterrent." Ah, altogether now: "The gahmen, the gahmen, the gahmen (insert yawn here)". Here's an outlandish, revolutionary question to ponder: Any chance we might take responsibility for our own actions? . Because it's getting out of hand. There was a letter in another Singapore newspaper recently complaining about the canoeists at MacRitchie Reservoir. He claimed that the canoeists were not holding their canoes properly, which was not a sexual metaphor apparently. And canoes, in case you didn't know, have a pointy end. So the writer asked the authorities to intervene to avoid walkers or joggers being mutilated by canoes! There is, of course, a much simpler solution: Don't step in front of a bloody canoe. If you've never seen one, they are usually three metres long, made of bright plastic and shaped like Mick Jagger's lips. But plastic bags and murderous canoes show that some people have been so conditioned to the intervention of third parties, that it has become a reflex action to rely on others. There's been an attack of the canoes. Send in the gahmen! But the plastic bag issue must be resolved independently because 27 bags per person per day is not acceptable. Start saying no to unwanted plastic bags. Or I'm coming after you with my canoe. Catch Neil Humphreys on Gold 90FM's The Gold Nightshift with Mr X every weeknight at 11. links Related articles on Singapore: plastic bags More articles on Singapore: general environmental issues |
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