Personally,I wasn’t that worried. I’d seen such a world before. I know this will sound likeAngela’s Ashes or theFour Yorkshiremen sketch,but here’s the truth about the Australia of not so long ago. We didn’t have throw-away plastic. We survived.
We didn’t have plastic drinking straws. The drinking straws were made of waxed paper. Sure,this meant they occasionally collapsed if you sucked too hard on your thickshake,but a collapsed straw was the measure of a properly thick thickshake,so the moment of collapse was also a moment of triumph. The straws also had a barber’s pole swirl printed on them,which created extra glamour.
We didn’t have bin liners. Neither perfumed or otherwise. Food scraps were wrapped in sheets of newspaper,in neat parcels,and placed in a short,stocky metal bin,to be heaved onto the shoulder of the garbo,and deposited in the truck. More surprising still,people were adept at getting the parcel to hold together without the necessity of string or tape. How this was achieved is now lost to history.
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We didn’t have free plastic shopping bags.People had a couple of net bags for day-to-day shopping,and then a small upright trolley for a bigger shop. Somewhere along the line these upright trolleys won the name “The Pensioner Porsche”. I still have mine and,frankly,look pretty sporty when using it.
Engine oil was sold in refillable glass bottles.These were stacked in wire baskets on the apron of the petrol station. They were squat bottles,full-size or half-size,with a tin nozzle screwed on top. You’d pour the oil into your car,then put the empty back in the rack,to be refilled by the garage owner from a 44-gallon drum. Why anybody thought this system needed to be replaced with throw-away plastic bottles,I’m not sure,although I assume they had the term “marketing department” somewhere in their job description.
Take-away food was plastic free. Take-away mostly meant fish and chips,which was served in newspaper,or,later,white butchers’ paper. For Chinese take-away,you’d take some pots or containers from home,and they’d fill them when the meal was ready. (My family never had take-away,alas,so I base this on the memory of others.)