In that vein, I’ve noticed how little many seemingly progressive companies care about plastic waste. Lots of products that I would think are meant to cater to a progressive, “green” crowd use thick packaging apparently to give the product a premium feel. Hint brand water is one example, and a bag of Forager chips I had recently did this too. The thick plastic gives the product a premium feel but is utterly destructive to the earth. However the negative effects are rarely witnessed by either the producers or the consumers, and so they both benefit from the fictional belief that this behavior is okay.

I don’t mean to single out just these manufacturers, as all profit seeking organizations seem to behave in this way where the harms of their actions are quietly ignored. Consumers buy in to this equally, or make some off hand remark about the waste and keep on going. It’s a cultural issue for sure, and I agree that exporting this way of life to places even less equipped to handle it is yet another of those unseen harms we all happily allow ourselves to ignore.

My hope is to combat all these issues by fighting to change our culture at home to one that is radically waste free. We can use the privilege that got us in to this position to help get out of it. We can learn to be waste free. Unfortunately we’re hooked on the disposable culture bad, and I’m not sure if we’ll ever get ourselves off it. We could, but time will tell if we care enough and are creative enough to do it.