Preferring Earth Over Plastics

A fortunate coincidence or circumstance brought me to a blog and a couple of sites I liked. The first one is about replacing plastics. The person concerned lives in Chicago, born and brought up in U.S. I take it, and as such is finding it difficult, since neither bringing up nor surroundings today help. It requires a great deal of courage and insight to do this, to initiate and carry on a conscious living action.

Obviously the difficulties are multiple, especially in any so-called developed country. Especially so in U.S.A. and even more so in parts in middle. A large variety of supermarket items come wrapped in plastic. You go out, any takeout food is either wrapped in plastic or served in plastic. You buy shampoo, not only chemicals unknown (yes they are listed on the bottles - in U.S. every item sold has to show contents - but how many comprehend them really?) - but also mostly in plastic bottles. And anyway most items sold in supermarkets do come either in plastic containers or wrappers. If you don't have a car and are using public transport the only way to carry grocery for the week home is in plastic bags, unless you live nearby and have a trolley you can take walking to the supermarket, in which case you can use the paper shopping bags.

When I lived there plastic shopping bags were not free, though only ten cents, but those ten cents mattered and I used the bags over and over, carefully folding them and carrying them around when the day for shopping arrived. Paper bags were free and my final roommate - housemate, more correctly - allowed me to use the trolley so it was possible to do without plastic bags, and the paper shopping bags were also convenient to use for lining the garbage bin. In any case the garbage had to be thrown in bags that were plastic though, I think. It was left on the road without bins - in Germany more recently one took the huge bin outside one's own house to the road where they would empty it - on a fixed day, and so at least then in U.S. some plastic was needed to throw garbage.

On one hand I then did not really have a clear dislike for plastic as such and as a matter of fact still don't except that it is endangering the Earth and oceans and life on earth, and we should do something to contain the threat already. Those days though money was extremely tight as it is for students not supported by parents, and so throwing away was a rare event. I bought yogurt unlike many others of Indian origin who prefer to make it at home, but I saved the containers and used them for storing leftover foods and / or giving away party leftovers - to those who would have it - in them.

(How could we afford to have parties? Well, one had to eat, and having company once in a while was nice, and it was generally dinner one invited or was invited for, and the food was the same normal food except it was more extensive in variety having invited people.)
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When I returned to India my feelings about plastic went back and forth. Travelling in trains I began to dislike the plastic cups, ubiquitous by then, that tea and coffee were most often served in. They were not as nice as styrofoam but even that would only have been good for drinking, with the throwing away still a problem. I used to carefully crush them till they broke (so they were not used again) and leave them under the seat in the compartment, and even had an explicit conversation with a travelling colleague who remonstrated with me about not throwing them out of the window - he was another U.S. returned and I was surprised at having to explicitly explain this - and told him no one is going to comb the country side for the garbage that was inorganic, and not going to become one with the earth with sun and rain, unlike the indigenous cups and other serving utensils made of organic material. On the other hand the compartment would be cleaned eventually. he saw the point immediately.

We in India have always had other disposable alternatives at least for serving food, sometimes different in different parts of the country. Until returning from U.S. and being hounded by the plastic cups we had sort of looked down on one of the options - but now I came to see the error of that and not only preferred it I wished it would survive and began to look for it and ask for it explicitly.

This was the north Indian Kulhad, earthenware unglazed serving ware of various sizes for various purposes, to be used that ones and then thrown away with force to break it - and since it is only earthenware with some food or drink sticking to it it all becomes one with the earth. Plus you are guaranteed a fresh cup or dish every time. And they are extremely cheap, made with local labour with little cost - then the tea cup would be one paisa, and it was included in the twenty five paise of the tea - so the vendors could afford them too. It is far too much trouble to have proper chinaware to use and return for a wash, and now come to think of it that wash includes chemicals that pollute the water-tables, earth, and so on.


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Another solution to packaging or serving food that is a good alternative to plastic and still survives in India from ancient times is leaves, usually banana leaves that are washed and cleaned thoroughly with water (and perhaps with a touch of oil to make sure) with no soap or chemicals. Whole large leaves are used to serve food on in many indigenous food serving places that are usually not expensive and cater to middle to poor class people, and in rural places or small towns they might be more ubiquitous.

But this is mostly in south and central west where banana leaves are so easily and so abundantly available - you just have to plant them outside the kitchen and let them have the organic waste water (not with soap or chemicals) that is the first rinse of the dishes. In old style dishes were cleaned with ashes of the kitchen fire, so then that was no problem either. In such places most often a bath was an oil massage and hot water with scrubbing down with brush or special stones and then the bathwater was good for the plants too, and often men had their bath outside in the backyard by the well (while the inner bathing room was for women).

I suppose I am mostly describing vegetarian places - to give anyone an unnatural food would be horrible, (everyone knows how and why BSE happened - it was the horribly unnatural food fed to the poor cattle!) and plants would not be given water from non vegetarian dishes, I would think, not in India.

For takeout food in such places they usually use smaller pieces of older dry leaves cut up to size and wrap the food up in the banana leaf pieces thus kept ready, then wrap the outside of the banana leaf pack in small pieces of newspaper cut up and kept ready, and tie up in thin raw cotton thread that can be used further - and usually is. The banana leaves can be fed finally to cows along with other kitchen leftovers and organic plant material kitchen garbage, and the newspaper pieces are thrown away, no threat until the ink became one.
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North uses another way since banana leaves are not quite so plentiful, rare in fact, and some other leaves are - but they are not quite so large. So there is a whole art and craft around constructing plates and conical bowls out of these leaves stitched together with tiny pin-like but much less sharp and a bit thicker sticks. The plates (Patraawali) and the conical bowl (Drona) are used still in many places, again, rural or more indigenous sort of places in towns that serve to middle class to poor people, and don't want to bother with washing the otherwise ubiquitous stainless steel or other metal plates and bowls food is usually served in, or often cannot afford the expense in the first place. But the places are clean, the food wonderful, and you do not have to worry about the plates and bowls - they are a one time use and thrown away immediately, often by the customers as a courtesy to the establishment saving them the unpleasant trouble.

This making of Patraawali and Drona is a much prized art and craft, and in my region, Mahaaraashtra (usually spelled with one a each before and after the r, but spelling this way makes it clear how to pronounce it correctly) - which is neither north nor south, but central west, usually is much ignored in the north-south attitude battle, and has plants and so on growing characteristic to both north and south, hence uses best of both in most ways generally, but is very frugal from necessity - once upon a time a potential son-in-law was judged by his skill to make them; in fact a phrase in a couplet explains that one who learns to make a Drona (difficult!!) before a Patraawali (easier) is smart indeed.
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Newspapers are another rich resource used for much all over the country - first and foremost they are never thrown away. In richer houses the owners might not bother but the servants do it for them and it is understood they keep the money thus obtained by hard bargaining. Buyers of old newspapers go around and call or knock and buy old newspapers that are usually kept collected and pay money to buy them and take them away. There are shops too where one can take them to sell them, but this shifts the balance in the favour of the shop and they pay little less. Magazines, especially glossy ones, are paid more for if one knows to bargain - though nothing compared to what one pays to buy them in the first place if one is so stupid as to do so rather than use a neighbourhood circulation library - and all this old paper is used in various ways, mostly packaging.

Most shops used to use pieces of paper cut up to size to wrap what they sold until plastic became ubiquitous and still continued for a while, individual ware wrapped in paper while the whole carried in judiciously few bags (economy is much on the side of ecology) and if a customer demands extra bags they have to be paid for.

But in north India where we grew up there was a whole industry that supported many a poor families - making small bags or rather packets (without handles) from newspapers and other paper like magazines. Some people apparently still do it and they really want the glossy magazines since those packs are attractive and pay a little more. Most grocery then was given in those bags that were then just closed with a complex fold - for that matter a paper packaging without a bag was an art of folding the paper into a package around the contained grocery - and one carried it home either like that or more often in cloth bags one had brought with one, made at home from old clothes worn out, removing the worn parts; or baskets of cane that were bought but were nice.

Plastic first entered the back way, by having housewives and girls make those baskets of plastic material by weaving them with only hands and a few instructions, and they caught on like pizza in U.S. did - in fact the fashion for trousers for women was much slower and is still not quite accepted, though it came not too long after. No one makes the plastic baskets at home any more, they are for purchase from market if one wants them and not woven but made in factories. And no one is proud of them either, since there is no personal art and achievement.

But old newspapers business is still very strong - and why not? We hate waste.
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For that matter old clothes - especially sarees - were never thrown away. If they were given to the poor, or servants, that was in richer homes. Most middle class had a similar solution on the lines of selling old newspapers, readily available sitting at home, and most still do.

Women do this trade - they come calling out in afternoons on weekdays, carrying (mostly stainless steel) pots and pans, dishes and serving utensils and boxes and other containers, and are then called in by the women of the house and the bargain begins - the house has old sarees and other old clothes to barter for the brand new pots and pans and so forth, and it is strictly a barter with both sides doing utmost to get the upper hand, and a mutual satisfaction is important or else some other vendor might be preferred the next time. So then the house has new kitchenware to use or store for giving as gifts at weddings or other occasions - considered auspicious and obviously very useful - without spending money.

And the vendor goes away happy too or she would not be in business, with more houses to visit and then to dispose away the still quite good clothes. If they are wearable it is one thing and if not they are recycled into various useful things, such as quilts or bags, or finally recycled into manufacturing newspaper.
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Our favourite places in this town to eat out are still those that serve indigenous - not restaurant standard "Indian" cuisine same in most places and nothing like how it is made in any home, but real stuff - served the local way on leaves. Since we live in south technically - it is really southwest, geographically and in character too - this means banana leaves. Incidentally in most southern places the leaf is oriented with the spine parallel to the customer, and this is considered inauspicious in my region (done only at funerals), so I used to correct it until within the first couple of attempts I realised the waiter would turn it around anyway and so left it alone thereafter.

I miss Kulhads and newspaper packets and much else - hopefully environmentalists local and national would bring them back and do away with the plastic. But I don't have good solutions to some of the questions - like how to keep and throw garbage, the organic kitchen garbage especially, without plastic bags.

There are herbal and otherwise wonderful shampoos sold by several makers, based on old traditional Indian ways of what was and still I hope is used in much of the country - but the shampoos are in plastic bottles. Living in India I can give the bottles away and they then are much used before anyone finally throws them in garbage. Ditto oil bottles, and often one can reuse them oneself by buying oil in packs - made of plastic.

The old fashioned grocer exists in smaller places or older established neighbourhoods where one would go armed with bags and steel containers for oil and so on. We live in a place where it is difficult to walk without a serious risk of getting hit by a vehicle. There are no sidewalks and a very modern highway divides us from more people neighbourhoods with the old fashioned small shops. We shop in city center in an old supermarket, Nilgiris; they have been in business over a century and are still a family management and the family looks after the store personally, but they have modernised and while it is pleasant to shop there and one can be sure of quality it is difficult to avoid plastic - they try, by offering cardboard containers, but it is difficult to lift them from car to home two floors up (from shop to car they provide a helper to carry).
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The lifelessplastic blog of Haegele, and other such sites - greenopolis, ecogeek - have made me think, and I am somewhere in the middle spectrum where there is awareness and preference but some more personal and global solutions to question of avoiding plastics and other chemicals would be nice.

For shampoo one could source Rietha or Shikaakaaie, easily in India and from Indian grocery stores otherwise; or use yogurt for summer to feel wonderful. So it is possible to avoid shampoo by working a little - the substances other than yogurt need at least soaking and boiling and cooling before use - though hair oil does come in bottles, and for personal reasons of safety concern I prefer plastic over glass, until they can bring back either a system of exchanging steel containers (like drinking water - plastic - bottles are now exchanged); or takeaway earthenware jars, for selling all this organic,mineral and plant material stuff. It cannot be done except on a larger scale but most of India would welcome it - we frown on waste as sin and plastic is wasted when it is thrown in garbage before it is ready to disintegrate.

Garbage, I don't have a solution, though I suspect this being India they are taken out of the garbage and carefully reused by poor. Still, that is only prolonging it. Wish I had more answers that did not include risk to a severe back problem as it would to have to do much standing or sitting. This writing - it is not a necessity except that of spirit and it can be postponed any time, so it is less of a problem than something that needs to be, has to be done.