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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2019-03-14, Page 5Other Views A year older and none the wiser Convenient plastic is no bargain Shawn Loughlin Shawn’s Sense Last week, as I sat in a long overdue Blyth Business Improvement Area (BIA) meeting, I was marking the milestone of my 34th birthday. I decided, as I waited for the meeting to begin, that it was time to figure out if I was happy with my life in its current state. It’s been awhile since I sat back and took stock of my life, but, as far as inspirations to measure your progress, birthdays are as good as any other day. I’ve never really been the kind of person who has a plan as to what life should be. I had some deadlines, sure (and what good journalist doesn’t?) but I’ve always believed that life should be about enjoying the journey, not following the map. I wanted to be a father by a certain age (because I didn’t know that I could keep up with a tween in my late 40s or early 50s), I wanted to buy a home by a certain time and I wanted to be personal debt-free (not counting cars and mortgages) by a certain age. Thus far, I’m doing pretty good on at least two of those plans: My daughter Mary Jane was born so that she’ll be (hopefully) striking out on her own when I’m in my early 50s and my wife and I are getting ready to renegotiate our mortgage again, which means I’ve been a homeowner for quite a bit longer than I realized. The debt-free plan, well that’s going to be an uphill battle, but at least I’m making progress every month. There are a few other metrics I had in mind: things revolving my career and my ability to craft wooden products. But, when I finished looking back, just before the meeting started, I decided that things in my life were pretty good. Sure, I’m still missing the finishing touches on my shed and there are a couple home improvement projects looming this year, but, as far as the goals I set out for myself when I graduated from Wilfrid Laurier University (a decade ago now), I’m pretty content with where I’m at. I was immediately concerned because I’m 34 years old, ideally less than halfway through my life, and I’d already hit a great many milestones, so I started looking on the internet as to things you should accomplish as an adult. The ideas ranged from the fun to the funny, the serious to the necessary and the ridiculous to the utterly ridiculous. I thought I’d share some of my favourites here and let you know where I sit. The Junk Drawer: One thing I came across a number of times was, by the time you consider yourself an adult, you need to have a drawer in your home filled with odds and ends. Batteries, screwdrivers, miscellaneous power cords and “one-time use” tools for furniture that likely aren’t needed anymore. I have that drawer. Actually, I have two of those drawers: one in the kitchen and one in my workshop. Collection of screws:Another one I came upon was a little more gender-based. The gist of it was you can’t call yourself an adult man if you don’t have a collection of various sizes screws, bolts and nails in a container somewhere. Boy have I got that. I have a coffee tin of wood screws, a baby formula-tin of various fasteners and a shoe box filled with baby food bottles of sorted screws. I would say I’ve got this one covered in spades. The Photo Roll: For those who aren’t as technologically savvy as the younger generations, your photo roll is a term for the various images you have kept on your phone. While the percentages vary, the idea that I came across most was that the vast majority of photos on an adult’s phone are of their child/pet/significant other. The remaining photos are things you are trying to sell to please your significant other or make room for your child/pet. One small sliver of photos, between three and five per cent, depending on the site, are of friends at events in which you’re likely too old to be participating. I’ve hit all the checkmarks here. My past photos are of my daughter, my wife, our pets, and stuff we’re trying to sell on Facebook or through The Citizen’s Swap Shop. On a side note, does anyone need a freezer? Favoured utensils: I didn’t get this one at first, but by gum it’s right. We’ve got a fork that has a slightly skewed tine in our flatware draw (not the good silverware mind you, but the everyday flatware) that I sigh every time I accidentally pick up. I also have a favourite spoon because it’s not quite a big spoon, but not quite a little spoon either, which makes it perfect for cereal. A box of cables: I’ve been working on this one since I was 19. I’d claim all the ethernet and coax cable left behind whenever me and my perennial roommates and I moved residences and I’m pretty sure I still have some of those old cables, some of which must be over a decade old. Actually, I had two boxes of cables. My wife made me great rid of one. Don’t tell her about my backup cable box. The only milestone I discovered that I haven’t hit was one where you’re supposed to have retirement savings equal to half your annual salary, but I’m pretty sure that’s Disney-level fantasy in this day and age. Denny Scott Denny’s Den THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, MARCH 14, 2019. PAGE 5. Thanking the source As journalists, we rarely speak about ourselves (with the exception of writings in spots like these in newspapers all over the world), we rely on interesting people to keep readers reading. Again, as journalists, the vast majority of us know this and, with the exception of some of the profession’s really bloated egos, we are forever indebted to the people we interview; whose lives we put to print. I have been thanked by people whose stories find an audience in The Citizen; they thank me for making them sound interesting. That’s not how it works though. Unless I’m making things up out of thin air (not ever a practice of mine) it’s the people who make themselves sound interesting; more often than not because they actually are interesting. Earlier this year, a film called Free Solo won the Best Feature Documentary Oscar. It details the astonishing physical feat of renowned climber Alex Honnold who, in 2017, became the first person to free solo climb (scaling a height alone and without the aid of any ropes or harnesses) the famed “El Capitan” rock formation in Yosemite National Park. Honnold’s free climb of over 3,000 feet high has been praised as one of the most amazing physical achievements of all time. Directors Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin documented the climb, which took just under four hours, with eye-catching aerial photography and cinematographers hanging in harnesses along El Capitan’s face. When the directors accepted their Oscar, they thanked their families and their children, they thanked producer National Geographic, they thanked the crews that worked on the film and they thanked Sanni McCandless, Honnold’s girlfriend, who, according to the directors, “climbed her own mountain”, during Honnold’s four-hour journey. All worthy of thanks, mind you, but someone was most definitely missing. Only as the “wrap it up” music began to roll did they remember to thank Honnold, the man who climbed El Capitan in the first place. This wasn’t the first such slip-up in this Oscar category. In 2011, filmmakers Daniel Lindsay and T.J. Martin were under fire after they accepted the Best Documentary Feature Oscar for their film Undefeated. In a film about an inner-city high school football team, the directors neglected to thank the team. On the other side of the coin, there have been documentaries that literally wouldn’t have been possible if not for the courage of ordinary people and when they won an Oscar, the directors realized that it was predominantly that story that earned them their statue. When Citizenfour won in 2014, the directors thanked whistleblower Edward Snowden for his courage in exposing the lengths of digital surveillance, even at a great risk to himself. Similarly, in 2017, Icarus director Brian Fogel thanked Grigory Rodchenkov, the man who exposed state-sponsored Russian doping in place at the 2014 Winter Olympics. The Citizen would be nothing without its people and its sense of place and community. There’s a reason, for example, that my story on Mikayla Ansley’s international essay win connected with so many people and I would never, for a second, be so arrogant as to think that it had anything to do with me. The world is full of interesting people, just as The Citizen’s communities are and we just happen to be lucky enough to tell their stories. So, thank you to all of the people out there who live stories worth telling and who allow us the privilege of doing the honours. When Premier Doug Ford’s provincial government contemplates banning single-use plastic items like straws, bags and wrappers, you know we’ve got a plastics problem. Premier Ford is not normally the sort of politician who likes restrictions, and his supporters are usually averse to extra costs, such as a possible deposit fee when you buy a drink in a plastic bottle, to be returned if the bottle is returned. But the amount of plastic going into our landfills is driving up municipal costs across the province. Just the other day at our house, as we realized we needed to buy another sheet of garbage bag tags, we recalled when tags first came in they cost $1 a tag. Today they’re $2.50 in our area. What’s more, we’re using more of them. It used to be bread bags and other plastic bags went into the recycling container. A year or so ago, China, which had been accepting North American recycled plastic, realized it was being buried in plastic and stopped accepting ours. Now the bags have nowhere to go but into the dump. In the discussion paper released by Ontario Environment Minister Rod Phillips, it was estimated that each person in the province generates a tonne of waste per year. If that waste can’t be recycled or composted, it fills up landfills very quickly. I see Morris-Turnberry is looking at having to open up a new area of its landfill. I used to cover Morris-Turnberry Council and it seems only a few years ago they thought they had their landfill issues solved for the foreseeable future. And if a municipality has to find a suitable site for a new landfill, it gets really pricey. Remember when Huron County spent millions seeking a new county site and finally gave up? What’s worse, much of this junk never makes it to either recycling or a landfill. It’s been estimated that almost 10,000 tonnes of plastic debris enters the Great Lakes each year, the discussion paper says. Our family has been trying to reduce plastic garbage for years through the use of things like reusable shopping bags. But as you look at what’s being packed into those bags at the checkout, it’s depressing how much plastic we still use. Meat comes in styrofoam trays topped with plastic cling-wrap. Fruit and vegetables are sold in plastic bags. Margarine comes in plastic tubs and sauces like ketchup in plastic bottles. On and on it goes – and we don’t even buy bottled water. I’ve heard for years that plastic takes 1,000 years to break down but I read an article recently that’s even scarier. Rick Smith and Bruce Lourie, leading experts on the health effects of toxic chemicals, have written a book: Slow Death by Rubber Duck: How Toxicity of Everyday Life Affects Our Health. In an article excerpted from that book they say that recently it’s been discovered plastic never really disappears. It just breaks down into smaller and smaller bits from degradation in sunlight, the actions of waves in water, or just the passage of time. These microscopic particles then enter the air, soil and food chain. In the past few years scientists have started finding them in food products such as table salt, honey, shellfish and beer. Virtually all tap water, they say, contains plastic microparticles. A recent study found plastic particles in the feces of every one of the people tested. So whether it’s for the health of the population or reducing government costs, it’s easy to see why the provincial government is willing to look at the plastics problem. It’s one of those ways municipal governments have been subsidizing big business. Businesses have no incentive to reduce the use of plastic because it’s cheap for them and the municipality picks up disposal costs. Consumers throw the plastic straws, cutlery and takeout coffeecup lids into the garbage bag and never really think about it – until the municipality needs a new landfill that will cost millions. Emergencies like the seven deaths from the Walkerton water pollution scandal helped create a new plastic monster – bottled water. Now municipalities must deal with millions of plastic bottles while major drink companies make fortunes selling water we used to get from our taps. Who knows if the provincial government will carry through on its crackdown on plastics once all the companies that have something to lose start fighting back. In a way, it’s one of those “You can pay me now or pay me later” situations. I’m hoping my grandchildren won’t have more illnesses and shorter lives because of all the toxic plastic particles they’ll ingest in their lifetimes. The convenience of plastic packaging won’t seem so convenient if our health care costs soar because plastic is making people sick. Keith Roulston From the cluttered desk