The daftness in the 'Green'

There was a time when I would get a used plastic bag courtesy of my excursion to Tesco the weekend before and throw all my garbage in it, tie it up and on Mondays, Wednesdays as well as Fridays, take it out and let Alam Flora pick it up. The Tesco plastic bags were very well suited for the job as the size was just nice for two days garbage. Life was in order!

Than somebody presumably in Selangor and wearing a pleated suit had to come out with the idea of ‘no plastic bag weekends’ and all hell broke loose. A plastic bag is now a rare commodity in my household. Being the “green” and environmentally friendly person that you probably are, you may think that this is good thing, but to be honest it’s not. I’ll tell you why, just read on.

This idea of not giving out plastic bags is a contagious disease. Tesco was the only one doing it at first, than Giant decided to be hop on the green bus and now even 7 Eleven. If you have read my earlier article, “Going green or going daft”, you’d pretty much got the idea of how troublesome shopping plastic bag-less can be if you hadn’t already experienced it yourself. Before, I can even have the chance of experiencing the trouble from shopping plastic bag-less in Penang (Not that I want too), Selangor has provided me with an intimate preview of the troubles of not having plastic bags.

Because I now no longer have those nicely sized Tecso plastic bags anymore, I am forced to make do with smaller plastic bags… those sorts you get from buying your children’s tit bits from the neighborhood sundry shop, in red. The smaller size necessitates the need to use a few more than I usually would a Tesco plastic bag. As result, my wife would now divide the garbage, one for food scraps and leftovers, one for used diapers and one for miscellaneous trash. I would than take the three bags out as I would usually do. So now instead of using and throwing one Tesco plastic bag, I’m using and throwing three smaller plastic bags thanks to ‘no plastic bag weekend’. Anyhow, all was quite well in the beginning; till one fateful Monday, Alam Flora decided to leave me a token of appreciation. They decided to leave behind one of the three plastic bags behind and not surprisingly so, it was… wait for it… the one containing my children’s used diapers.

If you have any experience with children, you would have also experienced the foul stench and other worldly smell emitted by the diapers. This being the case, there was no way I was going to bring those things back in, brave the smell for two days only to have to bring it out again on Wednesday. I opted to leave it outside. I slept peacefully that night. Little that I know of the nightmare awaiting me the next morning.

Morning, got out of the house at 6.30 am and… there it was, remains of the diapers and its contents splattered all over the tarmac dead shot middle of my house! Please feel free to imagine what I had to do next.

Having learned my lesson, I than decided that I can no longer leave three separate plastic bags of garbage outside. This is now my ground rule, my creed even if you would. So, still being short and deprived of Tesco plastic bags, I was forced to sacrifice a Nike paper bag which could had been used over and over again had it not been sacrificed for the greater cause of  containing three small plastic bags of garbage. So now, instead of using and throwing one Tesco plastic bag, I am using four.                

Later I thought to myself, I cannot and will not (be able to) continue to throw garbage this way that. I couldn’t continue to throw away perfectly good paper bags and more importantly I was by than running out of small red plastic bags. I than against my soundest judgment and being clad in desperation decided that I have to purchase one of those big black garbage bags. It cost me RM2.90 for ten bags equivalent to 29 cents per bag. Yes, it now cost me money to throw my garbage. I’ve now gone from throwing just one Tesco plastic bag to throwing away 29 cents! Marvelous.

The best part of it is that those big black garbage bags are simply too big. An overkill I tell you. So, in a bid to feel that I’ve not wasted my 29 cents, I now throw more rubbish and garbage than I’ve ever had before. Anything and everything having the slightest resemblance of garbage, would be deemed garbage and it is than garbage. I’ve contributed more to the garbage pile now than I did before the ‘no plastic bag weekend’ and so has presumably everyone and anyone who doesn’t enjoy wasting 29 cents in Selangor.

So there you have it, my reasons as to why ‘no plastic bag weekend’ is just plain daft and utterly stupid. As daft as two girls seating on the floor of the LRT clad in Yuna-esque outfit whilst all the while having two vacant seats in front of them AND as stupid as people purchasing a Mitsubishi Lancer in September!