Back in my young days, when broad minds and narrow waists had yet to change places, birthdays were often marked by kind relatives giving me a book token.
Strange though it might seem to today’s youngsters, it was exciting heading for the local bookshop to convert it into an exciting new book. No beeping, honking, clonking, crashing, bashing, hooting, tooting multimedia toys with a Disneyfied electronic voice or hi-tech computer games; just a book.
OK, so I got toys and games, too, and occasionally new football boots or “Green Flash” tennis shoes. I was never going to be a Ronaldo or an Emma Raducanu, though, despite my best efforts at kicking, swiping, serving or walloping a ball against a wall for hours on end, but new books were always treasured.
Mrs F had a similar upbringing. Both our weighty and inherited book collections make Fyne Place look like a public library. I wish Mrs F had library-style ambience, though, rather than her characteristic honking, clonking, crashing, bashing, hooting, tooting noise profile, spiced by her own Disneyfied slant – that disnae go there, that disnae look right, that disnae taste good, and such like.
That said, she’s so environmentally aware that she has even started recycling throwaway comments. That’s apposite as I have here a birthday book-token purchase, printed 50 years ago. It’s an environmental handbook. It fired my passion for our ecosystems – we were called conservationists then – and in the impact of humans on our natural world.
So, if you’re reading this, Greetin’ Greta and pals, please note that not all the world’s ills were caused by ignorant middle-aged white men in the past. Some of us were singing your songs decades before you were born, albeit with more of a smile on our faces that you manage nowadays. Why do so many environmental activists look as though they’ve just bought first-class tickets for the Titanic’s second voyage, I wonder?
I never rose to recycling my underwear, you’ll be relieved to hear, nor creating classy clothes out of recycled plastic bottles. They were too transparent for public decency I reckoned. But it’s now de rigueur to be environmentally aware.
Almost every product, from cars to washing machines and from nappies to insurance, is marketed with claims that the company involved is doing its bit to save the planet. Much of that is hyped-up hogwash, but it’s a trendy image to have.
That said, I’m pleased to read in the P&J that some supermarkets are starting trials of how they sell food. My 50-year-old environment book advocated carrying my own recycled containers to a supermarket, tipping the food I needed into them, then dumping the unwanted wrappers at the counter for the shop to deal with. It probably would have had me arrested in my local Co-op had I done so back then, but it was a sound concept that unsurprisingly is resurfacing today.
The production, use and disposal of unnecessary packaging is a much bigger environmental disaster than flatulent cattle, although the latter’s wind-power potential is not one I’m keen to embrace.
If the future means I never again have to struggle to open a packet of bacon, dispose of copious wrapping and plastic trays that once held anything from mushrooms to strawberries, or be encouraged to buy more items in a “bargain pack” than I could physically eat before the “use by” date, then that’s good news. Bring back loose knobbly carrots, I say.
I’d be delighted if zero-waste principles were applied to all dog owners, too. They can be a bit touchy, so I hope I’m not putting my foot in it, as I sadly sometimes do when out walking.
I read in the paper that a company focussing on providing dog-friendly holiday properties is looking for “canine critics” to review holiday homes. I hope they concentrate on the waste-disposal facilities and provide a negative rating for those owners who seem serially unwilling to clean up after their pooping pooches. If they can’t tackle that simple job, how can they even start to think of saving the planet?
My environmental handbook might now be a bit dog-eared, but I have no intention of recycling it just yet.
