For The Register-Guard
Published: August 4, 2008 12:00AM
Recently, I have pre-empted the “paper or plastic” question at our neighborhood Market of Choice grocery because of the reusable shopping bag I bring with me.
I suppose I am resuming this practice after suspending it for quite a few years. When I was growing up in India, buying groceries and produce meant that we walked to the nearby shop. We had a bag or two at home that were referred to as the “grocery bag” — not too big, not too small, just the right size to carry vegetables and groceries. Vegetables and fruits would get mixed up because there were no plastic bags to keep them separate, and we would sort them out at home.
After coming to the United States, I saved the bags given away as mementos at conferences and took them to India, because my parents thought they were just the right size for their shopping.
India was very different then. It had not become the outsourcing and tech-support capital of the world. In a way, the shopping bag captures that change. Beginning in the early 1990s, as India eased government restrictions on economic activities, the seemingly pedestrian activity of taking a bag from home to the store changed almost instantaneously.
I noticed during my visits to India that even the mango seller on the sidewalk had thin plastic bags for his wonderfully juicy mangoes. The vegetable lady bagged potatoes separately from the tomatoes, and these small bags were then dropped into larger plastic bags.
And on more recent trips I was blown away by the American-style grocery stores, where I could walk down the aisles and pick up what I wanted. And yes, at the checkout counter all these purchases are dropped into convenient plastic bags. No more designated “grocery bags” at homes.
On the other side of the world, here in the United States, we are slowly beginning to understand that our way of life, which includes bags and bags of stuff, might not be compatible with a sustainable planet. The plastic bag itself is more than an environmental nuisance. In a way that is more than symbolic, the use of plastic bags represents the global environmental challenge.
For many decades, we in the United States provided the yardsticks for measuring what it meant to be a developed and rich country. Going to mega-stores where there are umpteen varieties of everything, carting off the purchased goods in the trunk of a car, and then coming home and unloading the plastic shopping bags are scenes we all know too well. It is no surprise that people in India, too, want to enjoy the material life that we have considered as an inalienable right in the pursuit of happiness.
It is easy to forget that it has barely been a generation since India’s economy took off. Yet there is enormous pressure — externally, in particular — to change course and care for the environment.
It’s no wonder, then, that even the chairman of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, R.K. Pachauri, has asked developed countries to “get off the backs of India and China.” He went on to say that the rich countries should assist countries such as India move to a path of sustainable development that will have lesser impacts on the environment.
Yet even many people in India beat me in getting (back) into taking reusable grocery bags to the store. A few states in India actively are discouraging the use of plastic shopping bags. The city of Mumbai attempted a complete ban on these bags, but it apparently failed because of pressure from the plastics industry.
While many in India protest being unfairly blamed for the global environmental crisis, their constructive responses, given their level of economic development, is impressive.
Well, I am returning to my old ways of taking my own reusable bag to the grocery store. Of course, the carbon footprint from my next trip to India will wipe out the small gains that result from taking my geographers’ conference bag to the store.
But, hey, one guilt trip at a time, please!
Copyright © 2008 — The Register-Guard, Eugene, Oregon, USA
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