Tuesday, July 1, 2008
A shift towards sustainable parenting?– a talk by Victoria Penfold, creator of the all-in-one eco-friendly nappy, on World Environment Day.
Since starting Bio-Baba nappies 5 years ago, I have been pleased to see radical shift in thinking towards the inclusion of cloth nappies in a nappy routine. Originally, when people discovered that they had to wash them, they simply where not interested and stopped listening to reasons why it was a good idea, citing lack of time or sheer disinterest in ‘ someone else’s problem’ as the basis for not wanting to go the ‘eco-route’.
However, that was before we had to pay for plastic bags, before the tsunami, before the ‘fuel crisis’, before the discovery of a mountain on plastic in the ocean that stretches form Hawaii to Japan:
“The vast expanse of debris – in effect the worlds largest rubbish dump – is held in place by swirling underwater currents. This drifting “soup” stretches from about 500 nautical miles off the Californian coast, across the northern Pacific, past Hawaii and almost as far as Japan.” (http://www.independent.co.uk)
Now people are finally waking up to the sad reality that there will not be a planet for their beloved children to inherit if they do not take the warnings seriously. After all, if learned people such as George Orwell are to be believed, “We humans are capable of convincing ourselves of something that is not true long after the accumulated evidence would convince any reasonable person that it’s wrong.”
So are South African parents really prepared to make a change? Do the rich and affluent still suffer from ‘affluenza’ – a sickness where you believe that because you are successful and can afford to buy and throw away as much as you like, environmental concerns have nothing to do with you?
Since starting Bio-Baba nappies 5 years ago, I have been pleased to see radical shift in thinking towards the inclusion of cloth nappies in a nappy routine. Originally, when people discovered that they had to wash them, they simply where not interested and stopped listening to reasons why it was a good idea, citing lack of time or sheer disinterest in ‘ someone else’s problem’ as the basis for not wanting to go the ‘eco-route’.
However, that was before we had to pay for plastic bags, before the tsunami, before the ‘fuel crisis’, before the discovery of a mountain on plastic in the ocean that stretches form Hawaii to Japan:
“The vast expanse of debris – in effect the worlds largest rubbish dump – is held in place by swirling underwater currents. This drifting “soup” stretches from about 500 nautical miles off the Californian coast, across the northern Pacific, past Hawaii and almost as far as Japan.” (http://www.independent.co.uk)
Now people are finally waking up to the sad reality that there will not be a planet for their beloved children to inherit if they do not take the warnings seriously. After all, if learned people such as George Orwell are to be believed, “We humans are capable of convincing ourselves of something that is not true long after the accumulated evidence would convince any reasonable person that it’s wrong.”
So are South African parents really prepared to make a change? Do the rich and affluent still suffer from ‘affluenza’ – a sickness where you believe that because you are successful and can afford to buy and throw away as much as you like, environmental concerns have nothing to do with you?
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