OBSTACLES to environmental progress were quite formidable pre-COVID-19 pandemic.
But COVID-19 not only stalled most projects being undertaken, it added greatly to the already busy landfills and burning centres with disposed of masks and other non-degradable biohazard-protective single-use materials.
Also, increasingly problematic is the very large and growing populace who are too overworked, worried and even rightfully angry about food and housing unaffordability for themselves or their family --- all while on insufficient income --- to criticise various industries for the environmental damage they cause, particularly when it’s not immediately observable to the masses.
Meanwhile, too many people continue throwing non-biodegradable garbage down a dark chute or flush pollutants down toilet/sink drainage pipes as though they’re inconsequentially dispensing that waste into a black-hole singularity where it’s compressed into nothing.
This was especially reflected in the astonishingly short-sighted and entitled selfishness I observed about six years ago, when a TV news reporter randomly asked a young urbanite wearing sunglasses what he thought of government restrictions on disposable plastic straws.
He retorted with a snort that it is like he’s “living in a nanny state that’s always telling me what I cannot do”.
His carelessly entitled mentality revealed why so much gratuitous animal-life-destroying plastic waste eventually finds its way into the natural environment, where there are few, if any, caring souls to immediately see it.
Sadly, he’s far from being alone.
