by Ruth Kamnitzer - Just like that strange phenomenon where you are introduced to someone and then you suddenly begin to bump into them everywhere, in the week of our EarthDay campaign signs of change seemed to be popping up wherever I went. Anti-littering advertisements filled the billboards down at Shatti beach, Carrefour introduced a ‘green aisle’ giving priority to shoppers with reusable bags, I learned that MacKenzie’s café was offering a discount for customers with their own mugs or containers and twice at Al Fair strangers thanked me for using reusable bags, promising to remember their own next time.
Of course, I don’t claim our campaign brought about these changes; rather, I take them as proof of a growing awareness all over Muscat of the harm of single use plastic and a new willingness to tackle the problem. And I am proud that our school community is part of this change. Our Earthday videos, website and posts, social media posts from those of other participating schools and individuals, your social media posts and of course our HiFM coverage, reached thousands of people, thus bringing the issue of single use plastic into the public sphere. From the stories kids have told me about changes their families made at home, I also know this awareness led to action.
Many of you watched the Earthday campaign video I and the teachers at the school produced. The sentiments I tried to express in the video are real. Oman is such a beautiful country; even after 8 years of living here, I still feel thankful each time I dip my toe in the ocean, and gaze out on that glittering expanse whose depths still hold untold mysteries. We should all have a place to connect with the nature, especially children I think. So I feel incredibly saddened when our kids tell me that their experience of the natural world is never purely joyful, but instead is marred by the effects of garbage. How is it normal that most of the turtles they will see will be dead ones washed up on the beach? How has it happened that they will have to pick up the garbage to get to the sand? This is not the world I want my children to live in, and I am sure you feel the same.
Yet of all the world’s environmental problems, plastic pollution seems to me one of the easiest to tackle – perhaps not to solve, but to at least make a dent in. Reusable bags make shopping easier not harder. Mesh produce bags, available from Sidab women or on order from Amazon, work perfectly well for vegetables. Bringing reusable containers to the deli counter or a restaurant might raise a few eyebrows, but I assure you, it can be done. Insist the first time that they scale is set for the weight of your container, and the next time it will be done automatically. If you are a frequent coffee drinker, keep your cup in your car. If you are getting your drinks in the café or restaurant, ask that they use a real cup when you place your order.
Remember too, it’s not just plastic waste we need to cut down on, it’s all kinds of waste. Paper bags (and cups) have an impact too, a significant one too especially when it comes to climate change. We don’t want to swap one problem for another. But I promise you, cutting back on plastic waste is possible without impact in your quality of life or even level of convenience, I promise you.
Plastic pollution is too big a problem to lay upon our children’s shoulders. As adults, its up to us to take the steps we need – right now. I truly believe that one day single use plastic bags, bottles and cutlery will be museum items like the typewriter and rotary dial telephones, items replaced by better, more appropriate technologies. We need to make sure that happens before it’s too late. #earthdayoman2019
www.earthdayoman.com
