Precycling not a bad idea - when done in moderation

Precycling is the latest buzzword among the enviro crowd. Essentially, it’s just a fancy word for what people have been trying to do all along : avoid waste and garbage.

In one of her recent columns, Naomi Lakritz wrote that some of the proposed precycling ideas simply didn’t make sense.

She goes on to give examples of precycling measures and how they would actually increase the use of water, soap, detergent, power and -yikes !- greenhouse gases. And she’s right. When we stop using paper towels and use cloths instead, we’ll have to run the washing machine this much more often, consuming a lot more hot water and power while releasing ever increasing amounts of chemicals (detergents) into the environment.

Then, there’s the suggestion we should simply toss vegetables and fruit into the shopping cart without placing them first in plastic bags. Apart from the chaos that would ensue in supermarkets across the country when all those apples, oranges and tomatoes rolled around the aisles, most certainly resulting in several slip-and-fall lawsuits against the supermarket, has anyone actually thought this through ? With most checkout clerks in a foul mood most of the time, I dare anyone to approach one of them with loose veggies and fruit and asking a clerk to weigh and price them individually. Not only would this involve a Cirque du Soleil act on the part of the checkout clerk, who would do his or her damnedest to keep the apples from rolling off the scales and onto the floor or into the next customer’s cart, but it would cause such immense aggravation (as if checkout staff weren’t already aggravated enough as it is) that the clerk would close down the counter and run off in a huff, stranding all the other shoppers waiting behind you in line.

I do believe in doing right by the environment. I am all for reducing waste, eliminating pollution and ensuring that everyone has clean air and water. I don’t mind doing my share to help push back climate change/global warming either - I merely have a problem with the assertion that the science behind man-made global warming is firmly established and beyond any reproach, because it isn’t, far from it. I have to admit, however, that I am more concerned with using our non-renewable energy resources more responsibly and more wisely than we have (regardless of any global warming implications, whether they are true or not).

But I also know when something doesn’t make sense at all and/or when we’re about to cross a line leading straight into stupid territory. Some of the ideas proposed under the heading of precycling fall into this category.

Enter Paula Arab, a weird columnist, whose weirdness I ascribe to her years spent in Toronto. In one of her recent columns, she stated that children should be brought up and looked after by “hired help” and that a child’s parents didn’t play big enough a role so as not to be replaced by “extended family and hired help”. It makes you wonder where Arab has been all those years, with everyone always saying how important it is for a child’s development to have, ideally, both parents in his or her life. Apparently, Arab has never heard anything about what most experts have pinpointed as the main cause of young African-Americans ending up in gangs and in a life of crime : absent fathers.

Now, Arab the Torontonian has done it again. In her column today, she came out with her guns blazing and firing wildly in Lakritz’s direction : “Feel free to recycle this newspaper, especially Lakritz’s column slagging valiant efforts to go green.” And this is the polite Arab I quote here.

In short, Paula “My Kids are with the Hired Help” Arab trashes every single one of Lakritz’s argument, without ever actually making any sense. She fails to refute any of Lakritz’s reasons against precycling. Arab simply regurgitates the arguments and, for the most part, leaves it at saying that everything Lakritz wrote is untrue. For example, she totally discards out of hand the argument that cloths used in lieu of paper towels will result in more washing cycles and thus increased consumption of water, chemicals and power. Sorry, Paula, but even a five-year-old brought up by the hired help would understand this.

I have practised some form of precycling all along. When I go shopping, I bring my own plastic bags. Even though many shops try to talk me into using their bags, I politely decline, which sometimes can take several exchanges back and forth before they understand that the bags I brought with me are all I need. I reuse them again and again until they can take no more. Before they are consigned to plastic bag heaven, I make sure to maximize their use. I do this because it makes perfect sense to me. Why should I throw out plastic bags ? We all need to wrap or carry around something not just once but several times a day. Those baggies are handy, and if you treat them right, they’ll last you a long time (even the cheapest and flimsiest kinds).

There are doubtless many other ways to precycle, but the examples Lakritz lists in her column won’t do the trick. If followed through, they would create chaos (and thus cost increases) at supermarkets and trigger a new demand for even more power, chemicals and water.

Lakritz, who is definitely not trying to slag green efforts, as Arab insinuated, is interested in a common-sense approach to these things, one that can actually reduce our garbage, energy use and carbon footprint (for what that’s worth). Unfortunately, many of the current precycling suggestions, and which seem to have been affixed with Paula Arab’s seal of approval, won’t achieve any of that.