Recycling and Evolution!

BRIGHTEVERDAY Recycling and Evolution!

This should take a fleeting time to write, reflecting the many hours contemplating the problem and the repetitive strain injury to my eyes, blighted by an old adversary, gorging Consumerism. Witness piles of recycling lying at the roadside in Turkey or our rubbish tipped into the seas in some exotic Far East destination. Let us look at the alternative to printing even more money to fund an innovative plan; take the rubbish back to the supplier and make them responsible for recycling and disposal of the absurd volume of packaging and use of plastics. Why should we pay for their nefarious practices and neglectful abandonment?

So, experience tells us that large “Shed” supermarkets appeared with monotonous regularity, blighting a local neighbourhood, or township and destroying small independently owned businesses. They created a vacuous energy in their wake, confounding traditions, fair trade, and common sense. Often accused of collusion in pricing policy, they are an indiscriminate, malevolent force, reckless and devoid of social and commercial responsibility. They grow spuriously and exponentially as indeed does their effluence, discharging colossal amounts of rubbish, left for the consumer, and ultimately the Local Authority, to remove and treat. A wicked plan suggests a radical, assiduous, and entirely proper, solution.!

Packaging and resultant debris from purchases should be entirely the responsibility of the vendor; retail areas to be compressed to accommodate a transfer station, a collection and processing area for refuse and recyclable materials, to then be processed at their expense within the immediate area of their outlet. Perhaps it will focus the minds of CEO’s and suppliers to examine ancient practices and traditional, sustainable materials; glass jars and bottles, paper and card, linen bags and so much more! It would end the absurdity of meaningless and corrupt practices; no more shipping of rubbish around the globe to poorer economies, or plastic degradation of our environment and seas, and in limiting the size of the retail floorspace; no more collusion and price-fixing. Perhaps it would be a catalyst for the metamorphosis our villages, towns and cities so urgently needed, revitalising communities with thriving smaller shop units, offering specialist goods, and becoming an integrated part of a community, bringing a happy and relaxed shopping experience back to life!

The blight of “Shed” shopping has sated an unsustainable market, one which should disintegrate in an evolved and environmentally conscious, public. The model of economy of scale, is random, profane, and dehumanising. It demands intervention if necessary, to protect aged institutions and practices; not everything can be trusted to the forces and whims of Commercialism and Materialism! The demise of the crudely lit, dispassionate, ignoble shopping experience is upon us, the return of an ambient and refreshing one, overdue. It heralds the matrix of individuals, exulting, ethnic and cultural diversity in a blaze of colour, championing local and exotic produce, and wares. It signifies the return of the flamboyant, the adventurous and the bustle of thriving, sustainable community, and commerce, delivering a timely, valedictory, pronouncement on a shrivelling, mass-shopping culture.

We should all share the responsibility for good community, one which is caring and sharing, benign and safe. Our common interests and aspirations are the tenure of, and endorsement of, an altruistic and noble society. A gentle shift to greater enlightenment, self-responsibility, and community, is more than a gesture, rather it is a lifestyle; it is stimulating and inclusive, bringing people together in the intimacy of friendship and association. We share a bond of kinship and fellowship; indeed, some need such comfort in loneliness, and isolation, and a community-based shopping culture gives hope for a return to a gentleness and compassion.