Checking out at the supermarket recently, the young cashier suggested I should bring in my own bags because plastic ones weren’t good for the environment. I apologised and explained that we didn’t have the green thing in our day. The cashier responded, “That it’s our problem today because your generation did not care enough to save our environment for the future generation!”
She was right about 1 thing: we didn’t have the green thing in our day, so what did we have?
After some reflection and soul-searching on our day, here’s what I remembered.
Back then, we returned milk bottles, fizzy pop and beer bottles to the store and the store returned them to the manufacturer, where the bottles were washed sterilised and re-used, so the same bottles were being recycled. But we didn’t have the green thing!
We walked upstairs because we didn’t have escalators and lifts in every store or office building. We walked to the shops and didn’t climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time we wanted to go two streets away. But we didn’t have the green thing in our day!
Back then, we washed the baby’s nappies, we didn’t have the throw-away kind. We dried our clothes on a line, not on an energy-gobbling machine burning 240 volts – wind and solar power really did dry our clothes! But we didn’t have the green thing in our day!
Kids got hand-me-downs from their brothers or sisters and not brand-new clothing every time. But we didn’t have the green thing in our day.
Back then, we had 1 TV or radio in the house, not a TV in every room, and the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief, not a screen the size of Wales!
In the kitchen, we blended or stirred by hand, we didn’t have electric machines doing everything for us.
When we packed a parcel for posting, it was wrapped in old newspapers to protect them, not Styrofoam or bubble wrap.
Back then, we didn’t fire up an engine and burn petrol just to cut the grass, we used a push mower that ran on human power. We exercised by working, so we didn’t need to go to the gym or health club to go on a treadmill run on electricity. But we didn’t have the green thing.
Back then, we drank from a fountain when we were thirsty instead of using a plastic cup or bottle every time we needed a drink. We refilled writing pens with ink instead of buying new ones, and we replaced the blades of a razor instead of throwing them away when they went blunt. But we didn’t have the green thing back then.
Back then, people took buses, and kids took their bikes to school or walked instead of Mum being a 24-hour taxi service.
We had 1 electrical outlet in each room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances, and we didn’t need a computerised gadget to receive a signal beamed from a satellite 2,000 miles away in space to find the nearest pizza joint. But we didn’t have the green thing back then.
One final point: In August 1967, the UK Electric Vehicle Association put out a press release stating that Britain had more battery-electric vehicles on its roads than the rest of the world combined. (Source: Wikipedia)
Sadly, the current generation laments how wasteful we older folk were just because we didn’t do the green thing!
Please forward this if you wish to teach another selfish old person a lesson in conservation from a smarty-pants, no it all, up their own arse, ignorant young person!
