The other day, once is not custom, I venture into the aisles of a hypermarket.At the checkout, I find myself behind a lady who pushes her shopping cart.Here are his races: ham (four slices), chicken thighs, head cheese, bacon, beets, lamb's lettuce, lettuce (pave), broccoli head, cherry tomatoes, endives, grapes, avocados, apples, sliced bread, mineral water (Pack of six), bananas, nuts, raspberries, absorbent paper (three rolls pack), Paris mushrooms and basil.
She puts them on the carpet, awaits the beep, settles with its loyalty card and puts its provisions in its reusable bag brought for the occasion."A gesture for the planet", as is written on the side.There is a hic, however: all these products (except apples, weighed by the lady) have a common characteristic.They are all packed in a plastic ...
This duplicity is embarrassing.For mass distribution groups, ecological commitment is an obligatory passage and imposed communication.Greenwashing is combined in detail.In this case, the ecocitoyan bag - let's not be afraid of words - is now part of the virtuous panoply of GMS [large and medium -sized surfaces, note] and other hypermarkets.It has its usefulness but is only a commercial clown, a symbol of ambient hypocrisy, a green mask posed like a red nose on the face of a society entangled in its contradictions.A pseudo "gesture for the planet" while the organization of the trade system contributes to trampling it.
Purchases in supermarkets imply to arrive and leave by car.The lowest price obsession induces imports on thousands of kilometers.Professionals know how to create universes of needs based on image and profusion, oriented towards (on) consumption.And this famous bag presented as ecological contains only plastic products.This ecological imposture is indecent.
Consumer responsibility should not be exempt.The reusable bag is a way to give yourself a good conscience.Admittedly, it is a little limited, like removing a drop in an ocean, but if people knew how to reduce their carbon footprint, many would do it willingly.The problem is that no one really knows what to do.Difficult to go to a bay bay by bike with a suitcase!
As long as the train often costs up to twice as much as the car, as long as Europeans import part of their consumption of countries that don't care about climate change, as long as the Gordian node between environmental protection and power of power'Purchase will not be decided, all the speeches will be in vain and the efforts will remain anecdotal.
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The consumer society is dead, long live the consumer society
The evolution towards consumption on the Internet will not arrange things.Because the barcode, inseparable from orders on online sales platforms, applies to a plastic support.New consumers need their dose of polyethylene.Will the green bag be enough to reverse the trend?
What about the public response?In October, no less than three ministers signed a decree prohibiting plastic packaging for fresh fruits and vegetables (with its share of exceptions, of course).The implementation will be spread between 2022 and 2026.Two years ago, the European Union adopted a directive prohibiting single-use plastics, starting with coffee touillettes and ears cotton swabs.Isn't that burlesque?
China builds as many coal-fired power plants as days ago, the United States hesitates, Brazil conscientiously destroys the lung of the world, and we choose to drive in town in scooter and bikes made at theAnother end of the world and delete cotton swabs and plastic bags!These two texts are the symbol of an insatiable technocracy which lays what it can to make people forget the deficiencies of political choice.Failing to decide - a less polluting costs more expensive - the politician is trying to regulate.
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Living green does not necessarily cost an arm, on the contrary
This regulatory mystic recalls the technological fascination illustrated by this anecdote.In the 1970s, American astronauts and Russian cosmonauts met.They debate difficulties encountered when it comes to writing a weightless note.Americans evoke an ingenious system with pumps that make it possible to push ink.But it doesn't work too well because the flow is always disregarded.And you?questions the astronaut.We answer Russian, we take a pencil.
Faced with the climate emergency, the groups reinvent hot water, consumers put their heads in the bag, and the public authorities are taken from an administrative frenzy!There is even more urgent than climate emergency: the urgency of common sense.If only this lady had done her shopping at the market with a basket ...
