Go Green...

How difficult is it to change the ways of one community's life?

I'm writing about one extremely simple issue: the green bag. And in Johor it is a very big deal, to make people bring their own shopping bags. I watched with much amusement on Saturdays when shoppers have to pay for plastic carriers if they don't bring their own..oh, the grumbles, the complaints, the sarcasm, the annoyance..makes you think it is not a bag they are asked to bring, but their own shopping trolleys.

I have experienced instances when the Pakcik Guard (the uniformed bodies they put at the entrance of shopping malls) stopped me and with that much arrogance, told me I could not bring my own bag in. And my bags from Tesco are those big, strong ones which I absolutely love. Why? I asked. "Mana boleh? Cik tak boleh bawak masuk beg ni. Tinggal kat luar." I had to call the supervisor in. That was at a smaller but popular shopping place. Then at a bigger, more international outlet, I did the same, but this time the Pakcik Guard actually followed me from a distance and made sure I saw him talking on his walkie-talkie, his vigilant eyes on me all the time, like a snake about to swallow a frog. If, IF, he had done more than that, I would have retaliated and God knows I would embarrass the whole International Outlet for their blatant ignorance.
At another time, I was queueing to pay at the check-out counter and the customer in front saw me pulling out my bags from my trolley and as she paid, in a voice loud enough for half the mall to hear her, asked the cashier: "Kalau saya bawak saya punya beg sendiri, awak ada kasi saya duit ka?" I have that feeling that she avoids shopping for her groceries on Saturdays now.

My children, from their stint in the UK when we were there back in the 90's, have learnt long ago about going green.
They saw the OAPs (Old Age Pensioners), hunched and frail, pull out used plastic bags from their coat pockets to fill in their stuffs.
They helped their father look for cartons or boxes to put in our stuffs. Or, if none available, we would just push the trolley out and dump everything into the boot of the car and drove off, cans and bottles happily rolling about and intimately knocking against each other in there.

The same goes for recycling bottles and glass and paper and cans. People look down their noses here if they are asked to separate these things. Oh no, that's the job for garbage collectors.
At home, I have four rubbish bins in different colours, and it's not damaging my reputation to just throw the disposables in their respective bins. The twins are learning this now as they inspect the contents everytime they come to Nenek's house, and dutifully tell me, should one bin be filled, "Nenek, dah tak muat."

And to date, because it was only yesterday that I shopped for groceries, this go green campaign does not seem to catch on yet. I was still the only one who brought my own bags. And the sweet young thing at the counter smiled and said, "Thank you, kak, sebab bawak beg."