Monday, April 25, 2016

Time we had a serious re-evaluation of where we are headed!


Sri Lanka is a Country that is so out of touch with what is trending that we seem to be immersing ourselves with things behavior and ideas that other people have begun to reject, after learning the hard truths of life.

If examples are needed: The Scots who have plenty of Coal for the next thousand years, is closing down their Coal Power Plants due to its toxic effect on the Environment amongst other disastrous consequences, and we are EMBRACING this like it is the latest fad!

San Francisco is banning bottled water, and insisting on re-usable containers to sell, carry and transport potable water, whilst we are encouraging more bottlers to produce drinking water. Can you remember when this fad came into being? Look at the landfills with plastic bottles, that other Countries are recycling.

The link below is particularly poignant, where people in England are gong back to have their milk delivered to their homes by the milk man in reusable bottles. I used to have two gold topped pints of milk delivered to my digs in Uni, as that was all I could afford at one time for a full day’s meal, and I am not the worst for it now, struggling to keep off the weight gained in the past 5 years due to the difficulty of exercising from an injury received in a vehicle accident.


We in Sri Lanka, MUST MUST MUST think about our consumption habits, and return to the great habits that seem to be dying out, like using only glass reusable bottles when we drink tonics and sodas and soft drinks, instead of these huge mega bottles we are getting addicted to. I must confess, I am guilty too, but I am now trying to reduce my consumption of items with a lot of packaging that one finds hard to dispose of.

As part of this it is high time our local authorities, take the trash collection to another level, as fly tipping is becoming common in Sri Lanka with rubbish strewn all over the place, in a NOT IN MY BACK YARD syndrome, where your neighbors fence is fair game. How tragic is this thinking amongst our people.

The whole area of trash collection, sorting out by the homeowners, and receptacles for different types of garbage is sorely required as it will take years to train our extremely indifferent and hard to change people into thinking of the best interests of their environment, will be their own best interests too!