The Green Thing

Checking out at the store, the young cashier suggested to the older woman,
that she should bring her own grocery bags because plastic bags weren't good
for the environment.

The woman apologized and explained, "We didn't have this green thing back in
my earlier days."

The clerk responded, "That's our problem today. Your generation did not care
enough to save our environment for future generations."

She was right - our generation didn't have the green thing in its day.

Back then, we returned milk bottles, soda bottles and beer bottles to the
store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and
refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over. So they really
were recycled. But we didn't have the green thing back in our day.

We walked up stairs, because we didn't have an escalator in every store and
office building. We walked to the grocery store and didn't climb into a
300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two blocks. But she was
right. We didn't have the green thing in our day.

Back then, we washed the baby's diapers because we didn't have the
throw-away kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy gobbling
machine burning up 220 volts - wind and solar power really did dry our
clothes back in our early days. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their
brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing. But that young lady is
right; we didn't have the green thing back in our day.

Back then, we had one TV, or radio, in the house - not a TV in
every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief
(remember them?), not a screen the size of the state of Montana . In the
kitchen, we blended and stirred by hand because we didn't have electric
machines to do everything for us. When we packaged a fragile item to send in
the mail, we used wadded up old newspapers to cushion it, not Styrofoam or
plastic bubble wrap.

Back then, we didn't fire up an engine and burn
gasoline just to cut the lawn. We used a push mower that ran on human
power.We exercised by working so we didn't need to go to a health club to
run on treadmills that operate on electricity. But she's right; we didn't
have the green thing back then.

We drank from a fountain when we were thirsty instead of using a cup or a
plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water. We refilled writing pens
with ink instead of buying a new pen, and we replaced the razor blades in a
razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got
dull. But we didn't have the green thing back then.

Back then, people took the streetcar or a bus and kids rode their bikes to
school or walked instead of turning their moms into a 24-hour taxi service.
We had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to
power a dozen appliances. And we didn't need a computerized gadget to
receive a signal beamed from satellites 2,000 miles out in space in order to
find the nearest pizza joint.

But isn't it sad the current generation laments how wasteful we old folks
were just because we didn't have the green thing back then?

Robert Green wrote:
The Green Thing

Checking out at the store, the young cashier suggested to the older
woman, that she should bring her own grocery bags because plastic
bags weren't good for the environment.

The woman apologized and explained, "We didn't have this green thing
back in my earlier days."

The clerk responded, "That's our problem today. Your generation did
not care enough to save our environment for future generations."


I would have slapped her so hard her mother would feel it.

Well, I wouldn't REALLY have slapped her... but I would have told her to
mind her own business. Actually, I think I would have expanded on that
minding-you-own-business theme for several minutes, ending with "If plastic
bags are so bad for the environment, why are you not only making them
available but are actually GIVING them away? Don't you bear the ultimate
responsibility? Aren't you ashamed?"

Pompous twit!

On Nov 22, 11:15*pm, "Robert Green"
wrote:
The Green Thing

Checking out at the store, the young cashier suggested to the older woman,
that she should bring her own grocery bags because plastic bags weren't good
for the environment.

The woman apologized and explained, "We didn't have this green thing back in
my earlier days."

The clerk responded, "That's our problem today. Your generation did not care
enough to save our environment for future generations."

She was right - our generation didn't have the green thing in its day.

Back then, we returned milk bottles, soda bottles and beer bottles to the
store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and
refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over. So they really
were recycled. But we didn't have the green thing back in our day.

We walked up stairs, because we didn't have an escalator in every store and
office building. We walked to the grocery store and didn't climb into a
300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two blocks. But she was
right. We didn't have the green thing in our day.

Back then, we washed the baby's diapers because we didn't have the
throw-away kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy gobbling
machine burning up 220 volts - wind and solar power really did dry our
clothes back in our early days. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their
brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing. But that young lady is
right; we didn't have the green thing back in our day.

Back then, we had one TV, or radio, in the house - not a TV in
every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief
(remember them?), not a screen the size of the state of Montana . In the
kitchen, we blended and stirred by hand because we didn't have electric
machines to do everything for us. When we packaged a fragile item to send in
the mail, we used wadded up old newspapers to cushion it, not Styrofoam or
plastic bubble wrap.

Back then, we didn't fire up an engine and burn
gasoline just to cut the lawn. We used a push mower that ran on human
power.We exercised by working so we didn't need to go to a health club to
run on treadmills that operate on electricity. But she's right; we didn't
have the green thing back then.

We drank from a fountain when we were thirsty instead of using a cup or a
plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water. We refilled writing pens
with ink instead of buying a new pen, and we replaced the razor blades in a
razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got
dull. But we didn't have the green thing back then.

Back then, people took the streetcar or a bus and kids rode their bikes to
school or walked instead of turning their moms into a 24-hour taxi service.
We had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to
power a dozen appliances. And we didn't need a computerized gadget to
receive a signal beamed from satellites 2,000 miles out in space in order to
find the nearest pizza joint.

But isn't it sad the current generation laments how wasteful we old folks
were just because we didn't have the green thing back then?

Mosty of what you say is correct but a lot of stuff we did which you
might consider green took considerably more energy.

Take bottles for example. Carting them back to the store and then
truck back to factory and washing them consumed more energy than just
throwing them away.

Same with washing and drying diapers for reuse.

I also remember my first new car, a '66 Chevy Malibu, which was
considered a compact car, getting 16 mpg on the interstate.

The environment is fine. Problem is, the greenies don't want
us to drill, or build new power plants. Our generation is
deprived of the power, oil, and technology that would make
us comfortable.

--
Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
..


"HeyBub" wrote in message
...
Robert Green wrote:
The Green Thing

Checking out at the store, the young cashier suggested to
the older
woman, that she should bring her own grocery bags because
plastic
bags weren't good for the environment.

The woman apologized and explained, "We didn't have this
green thing
back in my earlier days."

The clerk responded, "That's our problem today. Your
generation did
not care enough to save our environment for future
generations."


I would have slapped her so hard her mother would feel it.

Well, I wouldn't REALLY have slapped her... but I would have
told her to
mind her own business. Actually, I think I would have
expanded on that
minding-you-own-business theme for several minutes, ending
with "If plastic
bags are so bad for the environment, why are you not only
making them
available but are actually GIVING them away? Don't you bear
the ultimate
responsibility? Aren't you ashamed?"

Pompous twit!

On Tue, 22 Nov 2011 23:42:29 -0500, gfretwell wrote:

On Tue, 22 Nov 2011 23:15:32 -0500, "Robert Green"
wrote:

The Green Thing

Checking out at the store, the young cashier suggested to the older
woman, that she should bring her own grocery bags because plastic bags
weren't good for the environment.

The woman apologized and explained, "We didn't have this green thing
back in my earlier days."

The clerk responded, "That's our problem today. Your generation did not
care enough to save our environment for future generations."

I think this "green bag" thing is funny.

I've often wondered the "greenness" of making the things in China - where
environmental concerns don't seem to be particularly high on anyone's
priority list - and then shipping them huge distances to us.

When stores start offering "green" bags that are made within 50 miles of
where I live, I'll start buying them.

cheers

Jules

On 11/23/2011 8:27 AM, Frank wrote:
....

Take bottles for example. Carting them back to the store and then
truck back to factory and washing them consumed more energy than just
throwing them away.

And the mining and manufacturing inputs for producing the replacements????

I don't think so, no...

Same with washing and drying diapers for reuse.

No, there's no comparison there overall, particularly when you count in
the landfill and disposal hidden costs. That's _purely_ a convenience
to the user (the user being the changer here, not the wearer).

Been there, done that, the cost is no comparison.

....

--

Malcom "Mal" Reynolds wrote the following:
In article ,
Frank wrote:

Take bottles for example. Carting them back to the store and then
truck back to factory and washing them consumed more energy than just
throwing them away.

In my day, soda bottles were "redeemed" at the store you bought them from and
they were then taken to the factory, crushed and made into new bottles.

Aren't you 'in my day' now? :-)
In the early 1940s when I was a kid in the Bronx, NY, (during WWII) the
redeemed bottles were not crushed, just cleaned and refilled. Much of
the soda we bought were in bottles that were all scratched up from the
repeated recycling.



anything would consume more energy than just "throwing them away" unless you are
using a gas powered trebuchet to chunk them somewhere


--

Bill
In Hamptonburgh, NY
In the original Orange County. Est. 1683
To email, remove the double zeroes after @

willshak wrote in
m:

Malcom "Mal" Reynolds wrote the following:
In article
,
Frank wrote:

Take bottles for example. Carting them back to the store and then
truck back to factory and washing them consumed more energy than
just throwing them away.

In my day, soda bottles were "redeemed" at the store you bought them
from and they were then taken to the factory, crushed and made into
new bottles.

Aren't you 'in my day' now? :-)
In the early 1940s when I was a kid in the Bronx, NY, (during WWII)
the redeemed bottles were not crushed, just cleaned and refilled. Much
of the soda we bought were in bottles that were all scratched up from
the repeated recycling.



anything would consume more energy than just "throwing them away"
unless you are using a gas powered trebuchet to chunk them somewhere

That was the way things were when I was a kid in Holland as well, with
the exception that there wasn't much that we now call soda. The milkman
came with his hors/pony-drawn wagon by each morning. If you ran out, you
had to go and beg him in his home/farm whether he had any left for you.

--
Best regards
Han
email address is invalid

Jules Richardson wrote:
On Tue, 22 Nov 2011 23:42:29 -0500, gfretwell wrote:

On Tue, 22 Nov 2011 23:15:32 -0500, "Robert Green"
wrote:

The Green Thing

Checking out at the store, the young cashier suggested to the older
woman, that she should bring her own grocery bags because plastic
bags weren't good for the environment.

The woman apologized and explained, "We didn't have this green thing
back in my earlier days."

The clerk responded, "That's our problem today. Your generation did
not care enough to save our environment for future generations."

I think this "green bag" thing is funny.

I've often wondered the "greenness" of making the things in China -
where environmental concerns don't seem to be particularly high on
anyone's priority list - and then shipping them huge distances to us.

When stores start offering "green" bags that are made within 50 miles
of where I live, I'll start buying them.


What's magical or important about "50 miles"?

This "buy local" business - whether to promote the local economy or, as in
your case, minimize earth-destroying pollution - will, when taken to its
logical extreme, limit you to buying from your next door neighbor!

Obviously, there's a distance line somewhere.

wrote in message
...
On Tue, 22 Nov 2011 23:15:32 -0500, "Robert Green"
wrote:

The Green Thing

Checking out at the store, the young cashier suggested to the older
woman,
that she should bring her own grocery bags because plastic bags weren't
good
for the environment.

The woman apologized and explained, "We didn't have this green thing back
in
my earlier days."

The clerk responded, "That's our problem today. Your generation did not
care
enough to save our environment for future generations."

I think this "green bag" thing is funny. After the local news ran a
few stories about the bacteria count in these bags after a few uses,
people are asking that almost everything gets put in a plastic bag,
then it goes in their green bag and they walk out feeling like they
are saving the world.

Studies repeatedly show that if people do small things (like reusable bags)
they get an outsized payoff, mentally and believe they have acheived far
more than they really have.

I think the bag business is highly over-rated. Most bags I get may not be
recycled, but they're certainly quickly repurposed as dog poop and wet
garbage containers. The danger in forcing people to recycle more and more
things is that they feel less and less inclined to cooperate. That's just
human nature. (-:

--
Bobby G.

"EXT" wrote in message news:4ece9bc4$0$2618

stuff snipped

In the late 50s, I was a teenager, and worked part time in a grocery store
in the bottle returns counter. In those days just about everything came in
a
glass container. Soda pop came in small and large bottles, refunded at 2
cents and 5 cents. Javex came in brown glass jugs refunded at 25 cents.
Sour
cream came in glass containers at 10 cents. Milk came in a number of
bottle
sizes. My memory fails me on other products that you paid a deposit on the
bottle and got refunded when you brought it back. In those days I could
recall all the prices and add them up in my head as we didn't get to use
an
adding machine or cash register.

Back then a kid could make some serious change knowing where to look for
stashes of deposit bottles. The local lover's lane was a great place, as
were the areas around the open but below grade subway tracks where kids
would congregate to drink and make out. I remember piling them up in my
wagon because I don't think we even had big plastic trash bags back then. I
piled up the bottles, not the kids, FWIW.

--
Bobby G.

Robert Green wrote:
The Green Thing

Checking out at the store, the young cashier suggested to the older
woman, that she should bring her own grocery bags because plastic
bags weren't good for the environment.

The woman apologized and explained, "We didn't have this green thing
back in my earlier days."

The clerk responded, "That's our problem today. Your generation did
not care enough to save our environment for future generations."

She was right - our generation didn't have the green thing in its day.

Back then, we returned milk bottles, soda bottles and beer bottles to
the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and
sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and
over. So they really were recycled. But we didn't have the green
thing back in our day.

We walked up stairs, because we didn't have an escalator in every
store and office building. We walked to the grocery store and didn't
climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two
blocks. But she was right. We didn't have the green thing in our day.

Back then, we washed the baby's diapers because we didn't have the
throw-away kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy gobbling
machine burning up 220 volts - wind and solar power really did dry our
clothes back in our early days. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from
their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing. But that
young lady is right; we didn't have the green thing back in our day.

Back then, we had one TV, or radio, in the house - not a TV in
every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief
(remember them?), not a screen the size of the state of Montana . In
the kitchen, we blended and stirred by hand because we didn't have
electric machines to do everything for us. When we packaged a fragile
item to send in the mail, we used wadded up old newspapers to cushion
it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap.

Back then, we didn't fire up an engine and burn
gasoline just to cut the lawn. We used a push mower that ran on human
power.We exercised by working so we didn't need to go to a health
club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity. But she's
right; we didn't have the green thing back then.

We drank from a fountain when we were thirsty instead of using a cup
or a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water. We refilled
writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and we replaced
the razor blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor
just because the blade got dull. But we didn't have the green thing
back then.

Back then, people took the streetcar or a bus and kids rode their
bikes to school or walked instead of turning their moms into a
24-hour taxi service. We had one electrical outlet in a room, not an
entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances. And we didn't
need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites
2,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest pizza joint.

But isn't it sad the current generation laments how wasteful we old
folks were just because we didn't have the green thing back then?

And today, when the clerk asks "Paper or plastic?" I usually respond:

"I don't care. I'm bisacksual".

In article ,
"HeyBub" wrote:

What's magical or important about "50 miles"?

This "buy local" business - whether to promote the local economy or, as in
your case, minimize earth-destroying pollution - will, when taken to its
logical extreme, limit you to buying from your next door neighbor!

which would mean everyone would be self-sufficient, which is a terrific result



Obviously, there's a distance line somewhere.

Ah....you swing both way? When you jump in the sack?

I like that quip, it's good. I like to tell people I'm a
closet heterosexual.

--
Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
..


"HeyBub" wrote in message
m...

But isn't it sad the current generation laments how
wasteful we old
folks were just because we didn't have the green thing
back then?

And today, when the clerk asks "Paper or plastic?" I usually
respond:

"I don't care. I'm bisacksual".

On Fri, 25 Nov 2011 16:26:44 -0500, "Stormin Mormon"
wrote:

Ah....you swing both way? When you jump in the sack?

No, he doesn't care where he gets bagged.

I like that quip, it's good. I like to tell people I'm a
closet heterosexual.

I heard of people doing it in the kitchen and the living room, hell, even in
the hall, but the closet?

zzzzzzzzzz wrote:
On Fri, 25 Nov 2011 16:26:44 -0500, "Stormin Mormon"
wrote:

Ah....you swing both way? When you jump in the sack?

No, he doesn't care where he gets bagged.

I like that quip, it's good. I like to tell people I'm a
closet heterosexual.

I heard of people doing it in the kitchen and the living room, hell,
even in the hall, but the closet?

I've got a U.S. map. It has pins in every state except North Dakota.

Your idea of "closets" has given me an idea for a new goal.

Thanks.

On Fri, 25 Nov 2011 02:25:58 -0600, HeyBub wrote:

Jules Richardson wrote:
On Tue, 22 Nov 2011 23:42:29 -0500, gfretwell wrote:

On Tue, 22 Nov 2011 23:15:32 -0500, "Robert Green"
wrote:

The Green Thing

Checking out at the store, the young cashier suggested to the older
woman, that she should bring her own grocery bags because plastic
bags weren't good for the environment.

The woman apologized and explained, "We didn't have this green thing
back in my earlier days."

The clerk responded, "That's our problem today. Your generation did
not care enough to save our environment for future generations."

I think this "green bag" thing is funny.

I've often wondered the "greenness" of making the things in China -
where environmental concerns don't seem to be particularly high on
anyone's priority list - and then shipping them huge distances to us.

When stores start offering "green" bags that are made within 50 miles
of where I live, I'll start buying them.


What's magical or important about "50 miles"?

Nothing, it's just "more than right on my doorstep, but not in China". I
should have explained that better though (or, indeed, at all ;-)

Distances to point of manufacture are obviously always going to be
different for different products, and that's only talking about assembly
and sales anyway, not taking into account where raw materials come from.

It's just irritating when something's made halfway around the world in
places with questional environmental policies and marketed as "green".

cheers

Jules

"Jules Richardson" wrote in message
news:jargam$e35$2@dont-

stuff snipped

It's just irritating when something's made halfway around the world in
places with questional environmental policies and marketed as "green".

It should be marked: "Green for country of end user, not so much for country
of manufacture."

--
Bobby G.

On Sat, 26 Nov 2011 04:54:09 -0600, "HeyBub" wrote:

wrote:
On Fri, 25 Nov 2011 16:26:44 -0500, "Stormin Mormon"
wrote:

Ah....you swing both way? When you jump in the sack?

No, he doesn't care where he gets bagged.

I like that quip, it's good. I like to tell people I'm a
closet heterosexual.

I heard of people doing it in the kitchen and the living room, hell,
even in the hall, but the closet?

I've got a U.S. map. It has pins in every state except North Dakota.

Your idea of "closets" has given me an idea for a new goal.

Cumming out of the closet?