Yesterday I went to the Eden. For those of you who are not familiar with
my town, Eden is the name of our shopping centre.
I wanted to buy a refill for my ball point pen. I had this Waterman pen
for about 4 yrs now. When I bought it, there was one refill inside the pen and
two more spares were also included. Last refill finished three day ago.
I first went to the local
stationery shop which also doubles as our Post Office. When I asked for the refill,
the young shop keeper looked a bit amused and said “we stopped stocking refills.
You can have a new pen for as little as 10 pence and just throw it when
finished.” I did not like the look and feel of the 10 pence pen though it was writing
all right.
I asked the young man “is there any other shop where I can find the
refill.”
“Try the Eden, the big departmental store, it may have it.”
That was why I was in the Eden. The big departmental store did not stock
it, even though they had the pen in its showcase. The pretty salesgirl with a
heavy makeup suggested “Try the stationery shop W H Smith on High street.”
In W H Smith, I asked for the
refill, I was sent to isle no.5 where a lot of refills were displayed. I could
not find one for my pen. I went back to the man on the counter “Can you find
one for Waterman, I cannot see it”. He came with me, rummaged through the pile
for a few minutes and finally found one. “Here you go”
There was no price on it. At the pay counter the computer said £7.99. I
startled “seven ninety nine?” That was not much less than what I thought I paid
for the new pen with two extra refills. I could not justify buying a refill for
that high a price. I bought a set of 5 throwaway ones for 50 pence!
I am now a not so proud member of the throwaway society. Not only cheap
pens, we get cheap cloths, cheap furniture, and cheap shoes. They are
functional and reasonably comfortable. Just throw them and buy the new ones and
cheaper ones when they get dirty or the fashion changes!
The price is being kept low by overseas production, robbing the workers
of a decent wage and sometimes cutting the corners in implementing the local
health and safety measures with connivance of the local businessmen and
government officials.
By regularly throwing away and buying new products we are ultimately depleting
the finite resources present on the earth. The energy needed for producing and transporting
these throwaway products is mostly coming from fossil fuel increasing the
global warming and air pollution. The ecologists, scientists and religious
leaders all are pointing to a looming catastrophe in not so distant future. Problems
of ever so increasing mountains of garbage and trash are there for all to see everywhere.
But the businessmen are happy getting more profit, the governments are
happy with rising GDP, the consumers are happy to get a kick out of buying new things at a lower cost.
Who cares for the bigger picture and the future, most of us are ecstatically
happy now with our little bubbles.
