“You buy furniture. You tell yourself, this is the last sofa I will ever need in my life… Then the right set of dishes. Then the perfect bed. The drapes. The rug. Then you’re trapped in your lovely nest, and the things you used to own, now they own you.”
~ Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club
A recent Greenpeace blog post, titled, The Story of a Spoon, written by Arin de Hoog, elaborates on the other, besides ‘being owned by all your shit’, consequence of owning too much stuff: the wear and tear on our planet, our resources and the sustainability factor. A plastic spoon seems innocuous enough except:
“The Story of a Spoon is an appeal for people to stop racing down the aisles. To slow down. To take a moment to think about how the stuff we buy came into existence and what happens to that stuff when we no longer have use for it.
It’s about asking ourselves, when you consider the history and future of a thing, is there a more sustainable alternative? It’s about understanding our inter-dependency with the natural environment and changing the way we consume for the better.”
Now I know many of you probably don’t use plastic utensils but on the off chance that some of you do use them, I think you may be interested in watching this video, The Story of a Spoon, below. And for those of you who don’t use plastic to devour your food, this is just another reason why, yes, you’re (inadvertently!) on the right path!
“We’re starting to get it. Change is already underway. We’re doing more reducing, more reusing and more recycling. More grocery stores won’t give you a plastic bag and more of us are exchanging our clothes or passing them on to people who need them.”
Personally, when I take my lunch to school or travelling or appointments, I have a plastic reusable spoon and fork kit that I take with me. It’s BPA free, pink and glittery… Now how could anyone resist using that? And at home, we have only stainless steel knives and forks. However, I do remember (before, when I used to be able to go to group gatherings (Where people sprayed their bodies and hair with industrial solvents, toxic fragrances and petrochemicals before arriving.) and the norm was to have a heap of plastic utensils to save on washing up, and, yes, I remember how they’d just get swept into the rubbish afterwards. Crazy, hey?When people, myself included, become sensitive to chemicals they are forced to look at their consumption of products from a different angle. Like not only asking themselves, Oh, where did this come from? but, Will this have an impact on my environment? and they must learn (adapt) quickly to this new way of living cautiously if they want to thrive or, just survive, even.
When you look at the big picture and society as a whole and what is needed to protect our planet, then human beings becoming sensitive to chemicals is not such a bad thing.
Your thoughts… ?
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Heather Awen: How MCS May Be Saving Humankind from Itself
love your blog btw, thanks for sharing all your wisdom!
Thank you for visiting 🙂
i hope all of us, world wide, who are suffering from and challenged by MCS can help heal our troubled planet together!
sounds wise. I bring my stainless steel utensils me, bring them back home and wash them up. I am in Berkeley Ca trying to blaze my way out of the LABYRINTH OF MCS.