To be slightly irritated to have missed being the generation that got to live life guilt free?

[Beetle76]

I opened a packet of smoked salmon for supper and then had to decant the bit I’m not going to eat now (dinner for 1) into a bulky glass container to keep in the fridge for tomorrow. I felt a twinge of irritation that I couldn’t just throw it into a zip-lock bag or use a bit of cling wrap. I then felt guilty about throwing the non-resealable, non-recyclable packaging away and then started to think about how I would need to avoid buying it again unless I could buy it by weight somewhere. But then I thought I probably shouldn’t be eating fish anyway because of the antibiotics they are fed as well as the slightly uncomfortable fact it was once a living thing.

AIBU to be irritated that I wasn’t born into a generation that could live a convenient life, where they didn’t live under the constant feeling of guilt for every little thing that they did?
I’ve had a long and tiring day today and living in ignorant bliss just seems very appealing right now

Which generation is this then? I think every generation has has it's own guilt.

I started having sex in the 80's, with the doom and gloom adverts about AIDS!! How it was going to kill us all if we did not use condoms!

Even almost totally comatose, as is the way with irresponsible teens when partaking of a bit too much white lightning, I would manage to make the person about to mount me put a condom on first! Hardly free love!

Knitwit you must be young! Only 12 years ago + there were no green, blue, purple, brown bins etc.

Just one large black bin which got emptied every week. Everything got squashed into that bin - glass, cardboard, plastics, food, everything.

I know it wasn't PC and looking back I feel guilty but it was bliss to just shove in one bin and have it emptied weekly

On a side note, I go to the tip a lot to properly recycle stuff that doesn't fit in our recycle bins. When I started doing around 4 years ago it was unusual (not never, just unusual) to see another female there on their own. Now there are loads.

Its like the checkout woman telling the older customer that all the pollution is her generations fault and she should recycle.

Sorry but it was far more environmentally friendly in terms of production in previous years. No expectation of perfect fruit and veg or individually packaged items or shrink wrapped even. Use of paper/greaseproof and string for meat and fish. String shopping bags were around in the flippin 60s and 70s.

If you feel guilt don't buy it like that ie prewrapped - that is the real issue that people still buy it when its wrapped and don't get it changed or buy elsewhere.

@grubbyhipster I would suggest trying Lino prints if you are up for making some yourself. Very easy for beginners and you can reuse the lino in different colours etc.

OP I think you'd have been stressing whatever generation you'd been born into. Try not to be so intense.

only 12 years - It was always possible to recycle - I remember collecting yoghurt cartons in the 70's for recycling though school and switching to a yoghurt make at home and glass containers for it. I have lived in areas with full recycling collections for at least 15 yrs

@subdaygirls I grew up with four bins (rubbish, green waste, recycling and glass recycling) they also started using compost when I was around 14. I am 24 so the concept of seperate bins must be at least 20 years old.

Sometimes I just want to dump our leftovers into the big bin but I can't bring myself to do it.

That ^ isn't a new thing for this generation. You should try watching one of the numerous programmes that have been on recently telling about food production, sharing, usage, and rationing in the war, and in the years after the war. People who lived through that, carried on with those habits (on the whole) for the rest of their lives.

I know what’s you mean OP. I’m 50, and all through my childhood and early adulthood, we just threw stuff away. It all went in the same bin. There wasn’t any other choice, until bottle banks started appearing in supermarket carparks. I didn’t feel guilty,because I didn’t know there was anything wrong with it. Now I’ll bring drinks cans home with me rather than throw them in a public “non recycle bin”. Having a social conscience can be a curse sometimes !

I use cling film and plastic food bags, what else are you supposed to do? The bags can be reused a few times.

When I was a child milk only came in glass bottles and other glass bottles had a 2 penny return on them.
Jars were saved for makes Ng Jan and preserves.
Paper recycling has been around for over 35 years,I remember being very proud of some stackable bins.

I know what you mean. I'm 54 and recycle/re-use etc as best as I can, but it always makes me think of my Mum, who was way ahead of her time, back in the 70s. We used to laugh at her for rinsing out plastic bags, and crushing cat food tins to recycle, bagging up newspapers in piles and saving tin foil - but actually, even then you could find ways to recycle stuff. She sadly died in the early 90s so missed the fact that the rest of the world caught up with her views - I still think of her all the time and she would love to see her views vindicated as they are now!

I’m not sure what generation that would be?

By the time we had modern conveniences that would have been relevant to your salmon situation, everyone should have been extremely concerned about the environment. Of course most people chose to be selfish arseholes and stick their heads in the sand for a few decades. Many people still make that choice today.

Which generation is this then? I think every generation has has it's own guilt

At last, someone with some sense!

This must be the first generation that thinks they invented being concerned, no-one else ever worried about the world before. We, the baby boomers, blamed our parents for the horrors of WW2, especially Nagasaki and Hiroshima and the fears we endured about nuclear war, going to school and wondering if we will go home again.
Your children will blame something on you, the world was ever so.

We got our first place together in '92 and used to take our recycling to the supermarket car park. Thought it was great when they started taking it with your rubbish.

We buy most of our fruit and veg in brown paper bags from the farm shop, and meat and fish from local shops wrapped in a small amount of plastic and white paper.

But yeah, when I was young we worried about nuclear war and AIDS. Happy times eh!

GrubbyHipsterBeard

The o-zone layer disappearing isn’t a thing any more

now cfcs are not in regular use this seems to have slowed but is absolutely is a thing. It's thought to be the cause of many skin cancers but thankfully it seems to have been effectively addressed hence the shift to focus on global warming.

This must be the first generation that thinks they invented being concerned

nah I am sure that all generations think aspects of the previous generation's lives were easier. Each generation has its own struggles to contend with. I do see what you are saying OP and think people getting offended are kinda missing the point(probably on purpose) I actually was thinking something similar today as I walked round wilkos thinking how expensive christmas will be this year if i buy every child a wooden plan toy made from fsc wood and wrap it in recyclable paper and all the food we eat is organic and not plastic wrapped etc. I want to do it though.

i feel exactly the same! I walked round the supermarket today and became totally paralysed. Organic fair trade bananas in plastic vs loose but non organic/ft? All my usual biscuits have palm oil in them so now i cant have them, bought a beauty advent calender but now feeling awful due to all the plastic, but can i return it as i cant go back til monday and if it doesnt resell in time it might be even more waste than if i use it? plastic in new socks so decided to darn instead, avocados killing orangutans so also out, only buy free range/ msc meat and fish but now feeling guilty about that too. All the joy has gone out of shopping!!

I know what’s you mean OP. I’m 50, and all through my childhood and early adulthood, we just threw stuff away. It all went in the same bin. There wasn’t any other choice, until bottle banks started appearing in supermarket carparks.

I'm in my 50's and we never threw stuff away. Glass bottles were collected by the bottleman and we got 2d off our next bottle, clothes and other material goods were collected for,recycling by the rag and bone man in exchange for huge bars of soap which we used for washing ourselves and our clothes, food was bought locally, unwrapped or in paper bags, and carried home in a wicker basket, furniture was passed around between families - I bought my first new item of furniture in 1987 when I was 26 - and clothes were passed down and around until they were only fit for the rag and bone man. There was less guilt about waste simply because there was less waste.

When we moved into our current house in 1999 there was still only one bin but now there was lots of disposable stuff and a huge amount of packaging.

I'm in my 50's and we never threw stuff away.
Do you remember collecting milk bottle tops for Blue Peter?

I think OP is BU. For many generations it was a struggle to simply survive. We have only had the luxury of being guilty since we have had so much 'stuff' to feel guilty about. The Victorians felt guilty about stuff (slavery, poverty, disease, workers' rights, etc). The early and mid C20 was devastated by World Wars. Late C20 felt worried about the atomic bomb, pollution (acid rain, poisoned rivers, smog, etc) and human rights/equality.
Your generation is not the first to worry about the environment: Rachel's Carson's Silent Spring was first published 56 years ago.

I'm in my 50's and we never threw stuff away.
Do you remember collecting milk bottle tops for Blue Peter

Milk bottle tops, stamps, aluminium cans, keys I think one year.. we pretty much always had some form of recycling on the go for one cause or another

I'm in my 50s, we created very little waste when I was a child.

Most fruit and veg was bought loose or in paper bags. Toilet rolls were in paper packets. Most other foods were packed in cardboard.returned for re-use. Cold meats and bacon was bought bought at a grocers or butchers and wrapped in greaseproof paper.
Milk was delivered in glass bottles and bottles were returned for re-use.
Glass bottles were recycled or had a deposit on them so we could take them back to the shop.
Most families has compost piles.
We had weekly collections for paper- aluminium foil and bottle tops were collected and recycled for charity.

In the 60s were still recovering from post war austerity, so adults were mindful of saving things that may be useful, string or packaging, leftover ribbon or bows.

Shoes were leather, many families would repair shoes at home, buying stick on or glue on soles and heels to extend the life- Woolworths had a large section of shoe repair items, so I am guessing many other families did the same.

I think people now are far more wasteful than previous generations.

And that is not always their fault- it's hard to buy many products without plastic packaging for instance.

And that is not always their fault- it's hard to buy many products without plastic packaging for instance.
In the good old days, when you were served by a butcher or a greengrocer, you got what you were given, unless you were sharp-eyed and told them to take back the gristly or rotten stuff. When they introduced self-service it became much easier to reject sub-standard goods and so manufacturers put effort into the preservative value and aesthetics of display - hence all the packaging.
Labour in this country has become so expensive that it is often cheaper to replace (with newer, better goods) than repair.

There’s an interesting article floating around on social media about Palm Oil. That in terms of the amount of deforestation caused, it is way down on the list after soy production (mostly used to feed animals) and space for cattle. It said that whilst we do need to look at ethically produced palm oil, if we stop using it then companies will start using alternatives which require far more space as palm oil production yields more product per hectare.

It pointed out that while Iceland pontificate about palm oil, they are selling meat from around the world, shipped in on mass container ships and probably farmed on land created from deforestation.

I’ll see if I can find the article.

Sorry, that was for tortycat

In our area, all rubbish collected from bins (rather than taken to the dump) is taken to a plant where it is incinerated which creates energy. No chemicals pumped into the atmosphere (apart from the diesel from the trucks taking it to the plant...) as the only outcome is the power and water. They then collect any non combustible materials and recycle. I feel a bit better about putting things in the bin since I found that out but do try to avoid things with excess packaging and don’t use cling film if I can avoid it.