On 25 Jan, 00:56, garden-addicted
wrote:
I would like to hear people opinion on the following.

You are entirely right and the solutions are with each of us, each
individuals doing what we can.

I'm off to France tomorrow, I'll travel by train for 14 hours. When I
go to the supermarket and local shops, I take a huge basket with me and
don't use any plastic bags. In clothes/records/etc. shops, I put the
goods straight into my huge shoulder bag and ask not to have a plastic
bag. I keep the receipts. I've asked for the last 2 years to friends
and family not to give plastic rubbish to our kids for xmas and
birthdays. In many cases we never got many as I have always moaned
about them. We are well known for recycling. All our white goods, until
last year, were hired - we have the oldest tv in the world, which we
keep repairing. We just finished bying our washing machine from Radio
Rentals. We bought a cooker 10 years ago, a huge affair with 6 rings
and I can bake 10 pizzas in there, very costly but guaranteed a life
time. I have just finished paying for it. All furnitures we have are
from second hand shops or given to us. The only new stuff are the
matresses, which are all hand made futons (and about 10 years old now).
They're hand made because the sizes are huge as my husband made the bed
frames. The only new stuff are the computers, which we recycle via
Emerge recycling, after having been in our office for a couple of
years. My son just built a very powerful computer out of old bits, and
some new bits, but that mega computer costed him £300 approx. The
computer world is making money out of our ignorance too.

If our attitude is to save money, many of us are saving money for the
long run, not for a quick fix. I have never expected anything to be
cheap. I have had this argument with my husband many times when he
finds something cheap and thinks it's a bargain. I hate bargains. I
know that it will break and that we will have no other choice but to
throw away. The cheap culture is our biggest problem - cheap sofas,
cheap white goods, when what we have is ok. Fashion is our biggest
enemy to. I will never forget when I first walk into TK Max. I just
couldn't beleive there was so many clothes at such a cheap price. The
temptation to buy on impulse is there. It's so so sad. Same with cars.
It is entirely up to us to refuse to buy this goods. It's up to us to
teach our kids that we don't need it.

I've been brought up by two elderly people, my grand parents, and I
think they have taught me to recycle 35 years ago without me noticing.
And I do the same with my own family now without putting the pressure.
My kids have never been demanding for anything. Never went bizzerk on
Reebock or Adidas. They don't like sport much in any cases. The people
you surround yourself with are very important too. I make friends on
the basis of their kindness and intelligence - kindness to nature's
future and intelligent way of living )