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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