Rarely, someone says something to me that really resonates with me completely and changes the way in which I think. It’s not often, but when it is said generally speaking it will have a lasting effect on me for a great long time. One example of this I can give is when I saw Michael Moore in early 2003 when he was living in London and doing a serious of ‘talks’…more like sessions where he talked about whatever was on his mind. We were able to get tickets for his last ever performance. A lot of things stick out in my mind from seeing him live, but one of the things that he harped on about that remains in my mind is loyalty cards. I honestly thought these things where American inventions (as did most of the people in the audience as well), but apparently they are clearly a British thing.

For those wondering what loyalty cards actually are, they’re basically store cards that enable you to accumulate points which later on you can cash in, you get 1 point for every £1 you spend. Every 100 points you get £1 back or something like that. Anyway after his rant (which involved talking about people’s privacy and information theft and other some such) I’ve NEVER carried a loyalty card in my life… I didn’t carry many back then but I did have a couple, all where thrown into the crowd (he was collecting them back then).

Anyway recently Fern was talking about the amount of plastic that we as human beings use in our everyday life, for food packaging. Open your bags after you come from the store, if you’re as bad as I am, almost 90% of the stuff you’ve bought is covered in plastic in one for or another. Water, humous, vegetables, orange juice, etc. She then started talking about how there have been cases where the amount of plastic starts infiltrating your system, tiny particles that eventually make it to your eyes, which are then covered in a thin film of plastic.

Needless to say that sort of freaked me out and it’s stuck in my mind. Unfortunately I’ve got to work extra hard now to find a method to try and change the packaging in which I actually buy things, or consume thing. It’s incredibly hard, I’ve got to say. In my life I have boycotted several things. Coca cola (I used to drink 1 a day, at least), Marks and Spencers, Danone, L’Oreal , Nestle (except for Kit Kats) and a few other things. It was very difficult to do this but I managed and it’s a habit. How the fuck are you supposed to stop using plastic?

The good news I guess is that plastic is being made from things other than petrolum oils and rather using different more organic elements, however I’ve not really found out any more about it and so I sit here looking at my plastic containers thinking of my eye balls. Sometimes ignorance is complete bliss.