Shop Local for Environmental Destruction?!!
Whilst I am almost 100% free of supermarkets for my weekly food-shop, I use my “local” shop regularly, as the post-office is located there and so I post my sales of The Prostitute State – How Britain’s Democracy Has Been Bought from there in re-used envelopes.
The owner whom I have known for over 24 years, got annoyed at me recently for closing the door when I came in to use the post-office.
I closed it as the air-conditioning was on and the expensive cold-air was flowing out of the shop.
When he angrily objected and I pointed out to him the contribution it was making to climate change and the consequences for his kids ( he has young children), he shrugged his shoulders and said there was nothing we could do about this…
Not only was the air-conditioning on but it also was freezing in there – my guess it was about 18C, when minimum recommended temperature by CIBSE is 25C.
The shop was recently refurbished and is now almost wall to wall climate destroying refrigeration.
These new fridges are terrible for energy efficiency and should be banned, because they all have no doors and so the cold air is immediately lost.
He installed a huge wall of wine-bottle refrigeration. Do we really need our wine to be pre-cooled? How much of it is warmed up by the time it gets delivered anyway and so the refrigeration is 100% wasted?!!
The shop has almost zero food that I would consider buying.
It has nothing organic, very few fruit or vegetables and almost everything is totally over-packaged.
No local products.
It sells loads of destructive chemical cleaners, cruel factory farmed “meat”, no bathroom tissue made from recycled paper and disposable products such as non-biodegradable wet-wipes.
And I bet they are not even using green electricity.
I have never seen them recycle any of the huge number of cardboard boxes they get through every week.
The only tiny bit of eco-responsibility came from me, as I got the local council to at least install a bike stand in front of the shop.
So my conclusion is that the vast majority of our local shops are totally destructive environmental disasters.
The question is what to do about it?!
What do other people here think?
peace
Donnachadh x
www.theprostitutestate.co.uk
