Wastage in the developed world vs third world
Recently on Facebook, I read one of those 'You know you are from xyz if...' articles. It was about belonging to the Indian middle class of the 80s and the 90s. One of the statements stuck in my mind -'You know you belong to the Indian middle class if you still save plastic bags for future use'.
And the surprising part is, even though I have been out of India for so long, I can still never throw away plastic bags from a trip to the grocery store. They are stored away for future use, always! So I definitely am still middle class:).
But reading that article made me think about a lot of other things I do which are very alien to the western world I live in. I always always switch off extra lights in the house, only the one in my room is the one on. I save wrapping paper for future use:). And so on.. All this is middle class too, right?
We all grew up in the times of Doordarshan where social ads dominated TV time and talked about conserving energy and water. I remember so many of those ads showing people switching off fans and lights not being used, and closing the tap when water is not needed.
But this concept of using less energy and water does not exist in the Western world. At all! Complete buildings and shops remain lighted all night. I don't know if it serves any purpose or not, but what would it take to shut down the lights? Am sure they don't lose sales that way!
Plastic is used everywhere like there in no tomorrow. There is not even the concept to reduce the use of plastic. For every bit of grocery you buy, you get a new plastic bag (guess how much plastic bags storage I use in my house?:))
Its now, in 2015 that in London, they have started charging customers for plastic bags in grocery stores, to encourage people to carry their own recyclable bags. I don't know if that's actually reducing the usage of plastic, it might just be making more money for the grocers:).
But I am still always shocked about the fact that the developed world has till now not risen up to its responsibility of helping the world. Of reducing consumption. Its just not talked about. And in a country like India where consumption is low anyways, these concepts have been there so much longer.
And the surprising part is, even though I have been out of India for so long, I can still never throw away plastic bags from a trip to the grocery store. They are stored away for future use, always! So I definitely am still middle class:).
But reading that article made me think about a lot of other things I do which are very alien to the western world I live in. I always always switch off extra lights in the house, only the one in my room is the one on. I save wrapping paper for future use:). And so on.. All this is middle class too, right?
We all grew up in the times of Doordarshan where social ads dominated TV time and talked about conserving energy and water. I remember so many of those ads showing people switching off fans and lights not being used, and closing the tap when water is not needed.
But this concept of using less energy and water does not exist in the Western world. At all! Complete buildings and shops remain lighted all night. I don't know if it serves any purpose or not, but what would it take to shut down the lights? Am sure they don't lose sales that way!
Plastic is used everywhere like there in no tomorrow. There is not even the concept to reduce the use of plastic. For every bit of grocery you buy, you get a new plastic bag (guess how much plastic bags storage I use in my house?:))
Its now, in 2015 that in London, they have started charging customers for plastic bags in grocery stores, to encourage people to carry their own recyclable bags. I don't know if that's actually reducing the usage of plastic, it might just be making more money for the grocers:).
But I am still always shocked about the fact that the developed world has till now not risen up to its responsibility of helping the world. Of reducing consumption. Its just not talked about. And in a country like India where consumption is low anyways, these concepts have been there so much longer.
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