If environmentalists are to protest something, disposable plastic water (and beverage) bottles might be the first thing to boycott. When I was young, they didn’t exist and people drank water from drinking fountains (and survived). There were also canteens (reusable metal (later plastic) water bottles.
California declared a war on plastic drinking straws, but compared to plastic bottles, their contribution to the detritus mass that covers the landscape, floats in the ocean and degrades over decades or longer – is NOTHING.
Yet not a peep from the environmental left. Why is that?
Yes, of course, they pick on things that they don’t use for boycotts, political action, etc. Hypocritical curs.
Glass breaks, glass degrades, glass sinks, and glass is more easily recyclable.
I plow through a gazillion Costco water bottles every year and have often thought of kicking the habit. At least the Costco bottles are thinner and kinder to the environment. I remember when everything came in glass bottles and they were returned and reused.
I don't understand today's compulsion to carry a bottle of water at all times. I don't remember mass dehydration being an issue as I grew up in the 70's. I'll never understood buying and carrying something that is readily accessible and nearly free everywhere I go.
I drink my water out of a glass, and most liberals don't.
Stainless steel water bottles are my choice. They don't cost too much and you can refill them over and over again.
By crackee, back in my youth I remember the milkman coming to our front porch every weekday. We would set out the empty quart milk bottles for him to pick up, and he would leave us the same number of full milk bottles. Milkmen never worked on the weekends, and yes: all milkmen were men, no women ever lugged milk bottles for a living, unheard of. On Fridays, the milk man would leave a weekend's worth of milk on the porch. And of course pick up the weekend's worth of empty quart bottles on Monday when he returned.
We would leave the milkman a big envelope of cash near Christmas, and we knew the guy's name (don't recall it now, that was 55 years ago or more).
Then mega-super markets sprang up everywhere, milk was available in throw away wax paper cartons, and the milk man found other means of making a living.
Ah, I pine for the good old days, when the milk man came to the front porch, and the average life span was 70. No need to worry about crippling arthritis, Alzheimers, etc. You just kicked the bucket at a convenient age and everybody was happy.
Sigh.
I'm with Fredd on this. The milkman would come and deliver the milk in glass bottles. Silver top for regular, gold top for extra cream. There was no "low fat" variety. Smart birds learned to peck through the foil tops and have a drink. Good for the environment, good for the birds, convenient for humams and a source of employment.
That was in England. It's probably against EU regulations devised by unelected eurocrats in Brussels.
We're having conniptions over plastic straws, yet the main sources of plastic waste in the oceans are China and the subcontinent. (Africa is terrible at managing plastic waste, but they produce relatively little of it – for reasons it would probably be "racist" to point out, so I won't even mention it.)
This is an interesting site (be sure to scroll down and look at all the figures, it does NOT strike me as an "evil West" agenda-driven nutbag site):
ourworldindata.org/plastic-pollution
Of the top 20 polluting rivers, all are Asian or African, apart from the Amazon at #6. River-bourne ocean plastic is 86% Asian, 7.8% African and only 0.95% North and Central American, and 0.28% European (as of 2015).
When I was a young lad, we bought milk from the folks who lived on the neighboring ranch. They had a Jersey cow. We brought the milk home in one gallon glass jars. The cream would rise to the top to be skimmed off. In summer, we would crash our surplus WWII jeep into a blackberry thicket, pick berries, then go make ice cream. Good times.
Lewis Black on bottled water—
youtube.com/watch?v=x9NgP5WP7bE
The only time that I have water bottles out is when guests arrive. They seem to prefer them to fetching water from a jug or alternately from the tap.
There are no more drinking fountains. Businesses are pleased to sell you a bottle of water for $3.
I thought you preferred clean, clear, distilled liquid over water (fish swim and crap in water).
I knew our milkman too, and the delivery service was sufficient to support a grown man and his family. Things have significantly changed. And living into your dotage at 95 is likely. "Long life" is more of a curse than a blessing.
It's an issue that whips up liberal angst like no other among enviro-nazis. And because it's racist to blame anyplace other than the US, the insanity spreads here, while the third world is awash in trash.
Those days are past and Jersey milk is the BEST, hands-down.
When I visited the UK, I asked a host, "do they still deliver those glass bottles of WHOLE MILK" at the door. He recalled the dim and distant past, and then searched several stores before he found one and brought it to me. The milk was delicious. Its loss to the UK is something that the modern generation has never experienced.
They work well.
And they generally don't get a puncture from tossing them into a ruck like I've seen all too many of the new thinner plastic bottles do.
We had Meadow Gold milk, and our milkman's name was Frank.
Mom and Dad knew him from "the old neighborhood", and yep, Frank got an envelope on Christmas from all his customers.
When my parents bought a small ranch, they got one to three milk cows. Guess who milked them? I enjoyed the whole cream and home churned butter. Milk, eh. Smelled like the cows to me. Still not much of a milk drinker.
Several girls I dated in high school milked cows. You learned quickly not to place your hands in certain places without an invitation.
And the keep cold colder and warm warmer. A better choice all the way around.
My grandmother had a milkman while I was growing up, but none at the house where I lived. Seemed to be a center of the city thing.
So many dairies have gone out of business since then. Sad.
Don't forget drinking water out of a good old garden hose or faucet when growing up.
But yes, it is funny what libs complain about. And while we're at it, don't forget those stupid plastic things that hold so many bottles and cans together in convenient 6 and 8 packs. Plenty of animals get caught up in those little plastic "nets".
Comments are closed.