There was a news program on the radio today about the problems with teenage kids drinking too much alcohol, specifically a certain very high strength alcoholic drink sold in glass bottles. The presenter of the program pointed out to a spokesperson from this drinks company how the glass bottles were being used by these drunken teenagers in fights. They asked them if they had considered making the bottles out of plastic to which the spokesman replied they had and the cost difference had been negligible but the problem was the environmental people had an issue with the change from glass to plastic.
Now the issue of whether glass or plastic is better for the environment is a difficult one as there isn't a definite answer for every scenario so that isn't something I want to get into here. Indeed, this particular discussion was more about the safety issue of the bottles being used as a weapon in a fight. The thing that troubled me about what was said was just the phrase, "environmental people".
I'm not having a go at the spokesperson in particular but I think it's a shame when people talk about the environment in this way, as if it is something that doesn't really concern them as the language used here implied. We are all people living in the same global environment so surely we are all "environmental people". Environmental issues therefore concern us all, not just those who care. This should be a basic principle that we all share.
Let's all start trying to look at the bigger picture, choose products that use packaging that is easy to recycle and maybe we can stop some of the shocking images in the video below from occurring.
MIDWAY : trailer : a film by Chris Jordan from Midway on Vimeo.