Maybe it's just me since I seem to always be heading in the opposite direction of the masses, but is there an increased passion for plastic, a sort of green whiplash? It strikes me as particularly odd given the bandwagon cheer to go green and save the environment, when everything I purchase at the grocery store - cakes, muffins, fruit, salads - everything that we used to manage to get home safely is now encassed in industrial grade plastic. There's a lot of noise about plastic water bottles and plastic shopping bags but not a whisper about the food containers spilling onto the curb from our blue boxes (by the way, shouldn't these boxes be green? if we're keeping with the theme, that is.) I just don't get it. It's as though someone 'in charge' or some well intentioned soul sitting through another mind-numbing powerpoint on how to improve, well I just don't know what, said, "Hey let's stick fruit in plastic so it won't bruise as fast and people in a hurry can just grab and go. And we won't have to spend so much time training our check-out staff because now they can throw the heavy stuff on top of the squishy stuff!" And in that moment, it was born, the wisdom to up the plastic content on the shelves.

These of course are the very same grocery stores where they sell you a guilt trip with their logo laden plastic coated, fabric reusable bags. Again, maybe it's just me but anyone else noticed these enviromental bags are generally a darker fabric so that while you are promoting their store, no one can see all the hard plastic containers inside!

Even our city officials eager to get on board banning the nasty plastic bags, are wanting to ban the sale of water in plastic bottles during our area's outdoor summer festivals and exhibitions this year as if the substance inside the beverage container were evil. The soft drink distributors must be giddy at the thought of how many cans of soda they can sell the public because as far as I can tell, no one's in a tizzy yet over aluminum (unless of course it's in your cookware or, gasp!, your new environmental water container! but that's another story.) It reminds me of a line in a great animated kid's movie called The Robinson's where Tiny the dinosaur tries to excecute his evil's master's great plan without success and even as a creature of very little brain recognizes the problem when he says, "I'm just not sure how well this plan was thought through."