Recycling is very fashionable these days among the younger generation, which speaks reverently about reducing something called a carbon footprint. Promoting alternative energy sources is also most important as is buying any product with the prefix “green”. Many think that the Boomer generation is and was totally oblivious to helping preserve the environment. Some suggest that we may have been the chief instigators in pollution.
Oh, really?
While today’s generation takes great pride in recycling an aluminum can or two. Boomers didn’t recycle in some receptacle; we physically returned milk bottles, soda bottles and even beer bottles back to the stores, which thenshipped them back to the manufacturers. There, the glass bottles were washed and sterilized to be used over and over again. Boomers even paid deposits on bottles to make sure none were discarded.
Today, some consumers recycle plastic bags, but the great majority ends up in landfills where they languish for 30 or 40 years while decomposing. Boomers didn’t use plastic bags. We used ordinary brown paper bags, which conveniently evolved into trash bags for everyday disposables.
Young mothers today buy throwaway diapers for their infants. Boomer moms used cloth diapers and washed each and every one – no matter how soiled. What Boomer does not remember a dirty diaper soaking in the commode? Cloth diapers were used and reused before they were passed on to another neighbor or family member with a newborn baby. How’s that for recycling?
Stores today advertise energy efficient appliances – clothes driers for example. Boomers didn’t use clothes driers. We grew up with clotheslines. Moms hung the family’s clothes out to dry and let the sun do the job.
Boomers also walked to school, rode buses and trains with regularity and young Boomers rode their bikes everywhere – and without plastic helmets, by the way.
Air conditioners consume a lot of energy. Boomers didn’t have the luxury of air conditioning. We had electric fans. An ordinary room in a home had one outlet plug – not dozens. Outside, there were no electric hedge clippers, trimmers or edgers. Boomers did those chores by hand and used push mowers, not gasoline powered mowers. And leaves weren’t raked and put in heavy plastic bags to be hauled away by gas guzzling trash trucks. Rather, they were burned in piles, often at the curb in front of each home.
Burning leaves? What about the air quality?
For the record, asthma was a rarity in the 50’s and 60’s. Today it’s a common aliment. Maybe the air quality wasn’t so bad after all?
Today’s world is one of plastic and throwaways. Clothes are used and discarded. Appliances are used and discarded. Bottled water – which requires untold amounts of energy in manufacturing of the plastic bottles and in transporting to the markets – is found in every home, business and refrigerator. Boomers turned on the faucet when they were thirsty.
So the next time someone says something about recycling, advise that Boomers were green before it was popular.