Bottle half empty

Seattle bans bottled water at municipal events. In the wake of similar actions in San Francisco and Chicago, one has to wonder if the inevitable blizzard of plastic water bottles wherever two or three are gathered -- think of any footage from an NBA/NFL "war room" on draft day -- will join the Styrofoam clamshell as an icon of environmental backwardness. The challenge now, it seems, is not so much to find a way to encourage people to drink water, like what's in the toilet, as Frito points out, but to monetize drinking water like the water that's in the toilet.

This half-empty outlook may be the result of spending some time with Althusser, and trying to persuade the kiddies that there might be something to this ideology thing of his. My pessimism in re getting folks to drink tap water comes out of a recognition about the bleeding edge of green consumerism these days, namely Whole Foods' elimination of single use paper or plastic bags. This is a good thing, I am pretty sure. Plastic bags suck.* As a large scale retailer, with a brand linked to green values, it behooves Whole Foods to do things like this. However, there are any number of things  like this that would have a similar, or greater impact on the environment. If WF limited its parking lots to cars with two or more shoppers, or introduced bike valets, that would make a big difference. (Gurgling Cod World HQ is 30 miles from the nearest WF, so when I make that trip to get local produce, I ought to force myself to listen to Alanis over and over. I do not, but I do digress.) There are other things, I am sure. However, the front where this war is being fought is in terms of the material of the bags we use when we shop. The very thing that denotes our green-ness, or environmental conscientiousness, also reinscribes us as  consuming -- the choice between  paper/plastic and reusable is a binary that does not readily permit us to imagine not having a bag at all. I'd expect no less from a chain that festoons its kiddie shopping carts with a "Customer in training" flag.

*What Poly Styrene said bears repeating.

Comments

[BK]

Not sad to see the styrofoam clamshells go, but let's call a spade a spade: that McDLT was the best goddamn sandwich McD's ever produced. I was a discerning 20-yr-old @ the time, and when the hot side met the cold side of that sandwich, it was junk food poetry in motion. Can I get an amen!?

[Fesser]

No amen from the Archbishop:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arch_Deluxe

[Rose's Lime]

Call me the ubercynic. I look at the stack of cute, colorful, more durable Whole Foods bags and wonder how many regular plastic bags you have to forgo to make a difference? Is it 20 or is it 200? Whatever it is, I'm guessing it's a larger number than the number of trips before your plastic container of organic buffo ruptures soaking your bag with whey that you decide is too much of a pain to clean out and just toss the bag.

The other day I was confronted with the dilemma when TAGS hardware offered me a nice re-usable bage for buying over $50 worth of stuff. I already have one of those bags at home that I forgot to bring. I told her to keep the bag and I'd put my purchases in my gym bag.

Here at the Limestand we're going for the old school frugality fashion statement - ratty old canvas tote bags from the likes of CPL, Harvard, and Intel.