Trade-off

Rigorous Advertising and Promotional offers seem to be working well for the organized retail players in Bangalore. If Star Bazaar and Total Mall were going gung-ho with their promotional fliers, last weekend, we saw a flurry of activity from Spencers Hyper Market that has opened up in Sarjapur Road. The crowd was thronging the new groceries outlet from the day of opening. A special counter called "Collect your free gift" was crowded even more. It's something that I can never miss.

Hubby and I visited this hypermarket yesterday, looking at different varieties of imported sauces, canned foods and snacks. It's good to see that we can now prepare Italian, Mexican or American cuisine with as much ease as Indian delicacies, what with all the malls stocking up the raw materials required. On the flip side, some of the practices that have been damaging the environment are also on the rise.

For instance, the plastic covers at the vegetables and fruits section. I seriously wonder how many rolls of plastic sheets are being consumed on a daily basis from these malls. Whenever I tear up a plastic cover from the roll, I feel guilty but I try to overcome it by storing these plastic covers and reusing them wherever possible. I also try my best to shop at local vegetables and fruits market where the vendor puts all the items in a single plastic bag. I come home and wrap the vegetables in the plastic covers that I have collected. Although I'm not eliminating my usage of plastic, I'm trying to reduce my consumption as much as I can.

One way to cut down on plastic consumption in such situations is to have a similar setup as a vegetable market where a vendor (in this case, a hypermarket employee) can measure the quantity and drop the vegetables in either a cloth or a jute bag. Once we bring the vegetables home, we can wrap them in zip pouches and put them in the fridge. Since we "pay" for the zip pouches and the quality of such pouches is good, I believe we wouldn't feel like throwing them away as we get rid of low quality plastic bags.

Small steps taken by each of us can help a great deal in preserving the environment. We are in a situation where we have to make a trade-off between protecting the environment and our convenience. What's going to be your choice?

I came across this picture on "The Great Pacific Garbage patch" recently and it definitely looks disturbing.