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!
