Rethinking Lifestyle

Two things happened a few weeks ago. The first was an announcement by the Government that they were considering increasing the tax on pop in order to combat obesity. The second was after the snow had melted I was able to count seventeen empty cans and plastic bottles in the ditch on a half-mile stretch of gravel road – the road I live on. And during the winter I had picked up many more that were actually on the road.

Regarding the tax on pop, the first thing I heard in opposition to this was that it would cost jobs! Really! What is more important, a few jobs in an industry that is likely killing people or hundreds of people dying an early death due to obesity? Note; you don’t see many obese old people, which suggests obese people die prematurely. And if it is true that increasing taxes causes a loss of jobs, then the corollary must also be true – that is, decreasing taxes would create jobs. Unfortunately it doesn’t work like that because if you take it to the extreme and have no taxes whatsoever you certainly would not have full employment. There would be no civil servants and no government programs. Basically chaos.

Regarding the littering along the roads, I can never understand why people come to this lovely pristine country and promptly start to ruin it. It is odd that people can carry a cup of coffee or can of beer/pop when it is full, but as soon as it is empty it becomes too hot to handle and out the window it goes. Unfortunately the people who do the littering are unlikely to be reading this column which is a pity.

Currently there is a 10-cent refundable deposit on beer cans and beer bottles, and a 2-cent environmental levy on pop cans and plastic bottles. These figures were set years ago. Since then inflation has reduced the value of money to such an extent that these days hardly anyone returns the cans for the deposit. Check the re-cycling boxes on garbage day. How many beer cans are just thrown out because it is too much trouble to bother with such a small amount of refund.

When I was in Nigeria many years ago there was a desperate shortage of bottles such that no store would supply anything in a bottle unless the buyer supplied an empty in exchange. Consequently there was absolutely no littering of bottles: they were too precious.

What I would like to see is a $2 deposit on all beverage cans and bottles. I’m sure no one would throw $2 out the window and if they did, there would be plenty of people willing to pick them up for the refund. Any cans or bottles that ended up in the re-cycling would be a financial bonus for municipalities and help to pay for environmental projects. Additionally I would like to see a much larger environmental fee on non-biodegradable fast food containers. For example, although I hate to see it, paper bags of fast-food leftovers do break down relatively quickly, but the plastic lining on coffee cups, the lids and plastic straws last for years. A serious levy on this sort of thing would probably encourage the fast-food companies to find biodegradable alternatives.

With the election coming up, if you meet a candidate please take the opportunity to raise these issues.