Martian Thoughts

Plastic monsters

A five-pence charge on a supermarket plastic bag changed everything. I saw it. I was part of it. An entire population changed from grabbing as many bags as they could to virtually not using them at all and always ensuring to have a tote counterpart handy.

Plastic has obsessed me for years. If I had a monster under the bed, it would be a blob of plastic that reaches out, trying to merge into me, its microplastic atoms binding to my organic ones. My usually indomitable optimism struggles to face up to the plastic challenge. It’s everywhere. It’s in everything. It’s hard to imagine a world without it.

As I took my empty toilet cleaner bottle to the refill shop, it struck me how easy it would be to end the nonsensical nightmare. If the government could afford it, we could lower the prices of refillable products: “You can pay full price for one-litre bottle, or get 50% discount if you bring your own and fill it up yourself down the refill aisle”. If the government were broke (likely), we could increase the prices instead (it’s not as though we don’t do that already): “Bottled toiletries are up 25% per cent, but you can pay old prices if you use the refill section”.

In under a decade, I suspect an outright ban on single-use plastics wouldn’t appal anybody—we would hardly feel it anyway. Who wants to pay more when avoiding it is so easy? That plastic monster isn’t as implacable as we might have thought.