The lady at the bakery takes a steaming loaf from a pile and gives me a shy smile. She doesn't see the cloth bag I'm holding out to her. She whips open a clear plastic bag and pops the loaf into it. "Here you go," she says in Turkish.
My husband cringes: he's been through this with me any number of times. He knows what's coming. So do my kids. If they were with us, they'd be blushing and edging away from me.
I pluck the bread from the plastic bag and transfer it carefully to my own bag. The woman frowns and her mouth drops open. You can see it in her eyes: What's wrong with my bag? My bag is cleaner than your bag! Which it is. Yesterday, I bought lemons and coriander and there are a few leaves still sticking to the sides. I shake my head and smile: I don't want the bakery lady to think that I'm just being contrary. But even if I knew the Turkish for "I'm saying no to your bag because the world is filling up with plastic," I'm not sure she'd be convinced. Only a handful of the shoppers here recycle plastic bags or bring their own cloth ones.
But I persist, and sometimes I know I'm getting my point across. The man at our local supermarket had no idea why I kept bringing my own bags to his store. To my delight, he spoke English, so I told him that the world was filling up with toxic plastic and I was concerned. He might still think I'm nuts, but he heard me out.
I'm not naturally contrary. I really don't enjoy embarrassing my husband and kids. But the world really is filling up with toxic plastic. On the off chance that you haven't read about this yet, please click on the link above. I had a rough idea about how bad the problem was, but after I read Bish Denham's blog post in April this year, I became fanatical about carrying cloth bags with me.
If we had to live next door to a vast plastic rubbish heap, I think many of us would start to notice. As it is, this is happening in our oceans where most of us can't see it. Thousands of feet of plastic trash are now drifting about in the North and South Pacific, the North and South Atlantic and the Indian Ocean.
This is a huge problem. It isn't going to go away unless we all start to do something. Like rejecting plastic bags in favor of cloth bags. "Come on," an acquaintance scoffed, "a couple of plastic bags aren't going to ruin the earth." And of course they aren't. But it isn't a couple, is it? What's the world population now -- over six billion eight hundred million, right? If only a modest fraction of that number used only one plastic bag per month, that would still be a phenomenal number of plastic bags to dispose of. And if I insist on plastic for my own convenience, why shouldn't the whole world?
"But everybody uses plastic!" people protest. They complain that the problem is too widespread, that there are too many people who depend on the plastic industry, that individuals can't make a significant difference. Moreover, people who insist on cloth bags and recyclable materials are often depicted as tree-hugging neo-hippie fanatics.
But consider this: fanatics get things done. By the end of the 19th century, slavery had been abolished almost everywhere, and yet this would never have happened if it hadn't been for a handful of people who were seen at the time as real nutters, fanatics who got so worked up about slavery they would virtually tremble whenever they spoke in public. When these crazy men and women first started their efforts, many people laughed in their faces. Slavery was a huge business, but a handful of fanatics brought it down, and without the aid of the internet, computers, or modern transportation. (If you want to be inspired and uplifted by the power of human goodness, just read Against All Odds, from Mother Jones January, 2004 issue.) After you read it, please remember that the fanatics of the 1780s worked their miracles without Facebook, Twitter or blogging.
So if you haven't already, go on and get worked up about plastic pollution. At the very least, go out and get yourself a couple of cloth bags, if you haven't already. Keep them everywhere: in your bag, in the glove compartment of your car, near your front door. Carry them with you, and if your local stores still use non-recyclable plastic bags, be a fanatic and tell them why they should change. Embarrass your children, make your spouse's toes curl up. Be a fanatic. You'll be following in some great footsteps.
