R U OK, World?
What software engineer hasn't coded "Hello, World"? But as Technology Team convened over morning tea at office this week to ask each other "R U OK?", I wondered how many of us felt the same for the space we call home. Thus "R U OK, World?" is the topic of my blog-corner today; afterall, world is all that swim, soar, and scram!
Change is the only constant. A quick search prompts the name Heraclitus as the father of the concept. It's one of the truest oxymorons that's as ubiquitous as air. Anybody who has weathered enough winters would proffer this wise advise to youngsters pairing it with "adjustment is the best intelligence" - they go hand in hand. From books to digital pages, from telephones to mobiles, from Lunar explorations to Martian - we have witnessed sea change in every sphere of life. While these changes took decades to shape up, there are some minor, almost overnight changes that has been quite perceptible - paper replacing plastic.
And this did hit me as I was collecting my delectable juicy grilled salmon with chips from Costi's counter accessorised with bamboo curtlery. As a child in India, eating occasionally from banana leaf or plates of sal leaves stitched with rudimental twigs was nothing out of the box. Back then I didn't need to pause and appreciate how bio-friendly they were. But silently the decades in between robbed us of those days and conveniently handed us flashy, glitzy plastic food-serving packages. Fortunately it didn't take as long to address the bane as it took to admit! I admire how swiftly biodegradable paper has superseded plastic at every eatery. The takeaway paper boxes, bags, straws, cutlery have supplanted styrofoam and plastic completely. Not just at eating joints, retail giant, Amazon, now delivers boxes taped with paper tapes. Refills of pens are now shipped in paper boxes instead of plastic. Tags on dresses are now strung to the fabric with thread. Eco-friendly appears to be the buzzword from clothing to confetti. That's an astronomical step to take some unfriendly detritus off earth.
But have we done enough? The answer lies on the light bathed shelves of grocery stores in malls. Chocolates, chips, snack bars, noodles, lentils, health food, cheese, biscuits, delicatessen, and a gamut of food items are wrapped in soft plastics that are largely ignored and make their way to landfill. The menace doesn't end there as they leak into the fabric of our environment in many different ways. Only a negligible percentage of this gets recycled to produce benches, road surfaces, and the likes. An array of "R"s - Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Refurbish, Remanufacture, Redesign, Rethink, Repair, Retrofit - do little to beat this scourge. Ever since REDcycle paused recycling soft plastics, the retail giants have consigned their soft plastic collection bins. The consequences are here for you to see - this has been produced since REDcycle withdrew a year back, from a household size of three (my family), extremely sensitive to this topic and abides by waste separation stringently. Think of the volume produced by the vast majority who doesn't even blink at scrunching up a packet and thrusting it into a bin. This area is quite grey and ideas to deal with the pernicious impacts often feels like flogging a dead horse.
But it's not all bad news! The hard plastics do get recycled - at least 60% of them. But "Reducing" looks more meaningful than its other counter-"R"s (read counterparts/ "R" counterparts). Hence, I'm looking forward to oscillating back to my childhood days bereft of mall-culture. Well, we can't get rid of malls, but those plastic free methods of shopping can be incorporated in these huge store floors. There are self-serve machines to cater to a range of dog-food, candies, and scones in some of the retail giants. If these could be extended to rice, lentils, flours, milk, and other select products, it'd go a long way in reducing this excrescence.
Of all the environment related issues, risks, and incidents - Westpac parlance that we all get - the easiest way to play a meaningful role in caring for our world is by tackling this niggling nuisance. Don't stay unruffled when you pick up that chips packet; ask, "R U OK, World?" You might end up saving a packet to landfill, and stave off saturated fat getting injected into your system as an additional perk. This movement might someday prompt the industries to harness the impermeability of plastic judiciously while replacing its endurance with paper and cardboard - who requires endurance of 500 years? They may roll out prudent packaging of paper lined with only a thin film of plastic! Self-service machines might take over sooner. The sleeves for labelling trays of fish and meat might see more of paper. Revolutionary BYOB - Bring Your Own Bag/ Box - may take us by storm. And why not? Reuse is arguably the next best to Reduce; for if we rely heavily on bamboo and paper for daily essentials, they'll soon be a thing of past. Soil getting impoverished, plants heading for stunted growth, daughts and flood causing mayhem on farms are frequently making headlines!
When world changes, remember the wise adage that comes along with it "adjustment is the best intelligence" - we definitely need to change our ways to cope up. I can't be more thankful to Westpac for having world class mechanisms in its premises; these cater to waste separation, minimisation, and consequently reduction through reuse. I, being a strong advocate of waste segregation, thoroughly acknowledge this. It can instill in us the cause and prompt us to drive it home (literally). Afterall, our world deserves to be OK to keep us OK!
Dona, Sydney, 15th September 2023
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