Ever since I came to the United States in 2006 I have been hearing about the whole ‘going green’ thing. TV, radio, internet, grad school and even my landlord back in the Philly house where I once lived have been constantly obsessed with recycling and going green.
At first, I thought what’s all this fuss about? The country is rich enough to produce whatever it wants. Naively, I was comparing it to how we had to recycle everything during the 12-year international sanctions that were imposed after Saddam invaded Kuwait. Then, we had to recycle plastic products and paper in order to have the government reproduce them because we were not allowed to purchase raw materials for the factories.
It didn’t take me too long to understand that the main reason for this obsession is ‘saving Earth.’
Recently, the Washington D.C. City Council unanimously voted in favor of a 5-cent tax on both paper and plastic bags that took effect on January 1st of this year, causing a lot of confusion and anger among the D.C. public who find it extremely weird to pay for plastic bags.
A few days ago, I was sick with a stomach virus and it was unbelievably hard for me to battle the snow and the freezing weather in order to get some chicken soup, which I totally hate and does not eat unless I’m sick. Worrying about wearing some warm clothes and what I should drink or eat to recover, it didn’t occur to me that I should carry my grocery bags until I reached the supermarket. Damn it, I said, now I have to buy these stupid bags. I thought for a second and two to see if it’s worth it to go back home and get the bags in this freezing weather. Finally, I decided to buy the plastic bags.
I felt frustrated, I have to admit, not because of the 10 cents I paid for two bags but because the going green thing has become too extreme. I thought about the whole “don’t be mean, go green” slogan and realized that it should be “don’t be mean to force me go green!!!”
Don’t get me wrong. Going green is something very important, I believe, but the way it is carried out might not be the right one to start with. Going green in the US will never save the world by saving some stupid already recycled plastic bags alone. I think there are bigger issues that need to end such as the use of bombs which causes an unbelievable damage to earth and to the breathing air. Do you know that war zones are covered with heavy grey smoke clouds? We need to start saving earth by ending terrorism and wars that cause huge fires and damage to everything where they happen. I have never seen an environmentalist calling for ending those causes of damage. All I see is people talking about paper and plastic products, ignoring the damage that is caused by a bomb coming out of a military tank or caused by a suicide terrorist attack.
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