why "plastic, paper, or cotton" may be the wrong question

Three bags of plastic bottles were dropped on my corner as if they were triplet foundlings -- almost three weeks ago (bag 'em, danno).

They are still there. The garbage men refuse to take them. It is just another symptom of how China's refusal to buy western garbage is affecting our lives here.

Last night I was preparing for our Sunday Bible discussion. We have been studying Jesus's parables this summer.

Sunday's reading is from Matthew 11:16-19 and Luke 7:31-35. It is the same parable.

Jesus uses a children's street song about conundrums to illustrate how people are fickle about their faith. The people criticized John the Baptist for having a demon because he fasted and did not drink alcohol. They then criticized Jesus for "eating freely and drinking wine."

Anne Lamott once wrote: "You can safely assume you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do." It is a universal human trait.

We do it with religion. We do it with the food we eat. We do it with politics. We discover The One True Way, and we then attempt to impose our newly-minted god on those around us.

How we try to minimize our impact on the environment is a perfect example.

Plastic pollution is a real problem. I have friends who are True Believers in the Church of No Plastic, Please. (Those in the church who drop the comma are considered orthodox. Those who drop the "Please" are ultra-orthodox.) If anything plastic approaches them, they take a moral stance as if Jack the Ripper had just offered them a lift.

That is fine. We need to do what we can to break the cycle of plastic pollution. But it helps now and then to put things into perspective.

Yesterday I received a Youtube link to a BBC presentation on the history of plastic bags. Like almost everything from the BBC, it is well-written and well-presented without the usual hand-me-that-Bic-I-just-washed-my-hair-in-gasoline hysteria.

I still remember when grocery stores that offered plastic bags were considered to be progressive because they were saving trees from the ignominious fate of being turned into grocery bags. It was a helpful reminder that eco-fads sometimes get it wrong.

Rather than taking the punch out of the report, I will let you watch it for yourself. The presenter has some very practical tips of how to respond when we are offered the choice of bags made of plastic, paper, or cotton. She then offers a very English solution.