I tell my descendants tall tales and true from the legendary past. The true ones inform them I was born pre-TV, pre instant coffee and dishwashing detergent, and pre-plastic. Definitely pre-plastic.
There were no plastic covered polystyrene trays at the butcher's, housewives put fruit into home-made string bags, and children knew the grocer would serve broken biscuits with his bare hands: there was nary a latex glove in sight, and said bikkies were always presented in a paper bag. This was saved to do duty for at least one school lunch: Tupperware and its ilk were invented in the USA in 1946, but took a good 15 years to reach Australia. And even longer to reach Greece.
Greeks were predictably instant fans of plastic, for plastic represented convenience and an end to domestic struggle. The first Christmas my family and I were in the Peloponnesian village I sent my two elder sons to their grandmother's house with presents of an earthern ware bowl and matching jug. Yiayia Aphrodite was somewhat less than thrilled. 'These things remind me of the bad old days,' she announced. 'Take them back to your mother and tell her I want something new in plastic.' It was a point of view, and also part of my long learning process.
Aphrodite had always, of necessity, practised frugality. She cut old dresses into strips and wove cotton rugs out of them, she used matches twice if she possibly could, and she saved every piece of string. She never bought paper tissues (although she had a supply of paper napkins for visitors) or used anything that could not be washed and used again.
I don't suppose she ever thought about recycling, and she certainly did not worry about the environment, but when plastic bags came into still-new supermarkets, she immediately made use of them. Handy containers, they hung from hooks and nails in kitchen and store-room, but she also cut them into strips and then plied her crochet hook very busily: I think every house in the extensive neighbourhood had received presents of circular blue and orange bathmats and doormats.
Now I learn that women in Guatemala are weaving bags and bag linings out of used plastic. In a thousands-year-old Mayan tradition they use portable backstrap looms: one end is anchored to a tree or post and the strap around the waist enables the weaver to control tension. They are recycling, and making concerted efforts to escape grinding poverty. Local shopkeepers have also reverted to using banana or plantain leaves as wrapping for the goods they sell.
I have been anti-plastic for a long time, and was a figure of fun whenever I produced my cloth bags in Kalamata shops. No more, for very recently Greek shops were compelled to start charging for plastic bags. Now you are asked whether you want a bag, and it has been heartening to see the number of people who bring their own. It echoes the movement in Australia over recent years to ban supermarkets from distributing single-use plastic bags.
"I have been anti-plastic for a long time, and was a figure of fun whenever I produced my cloth bags in Kalamata shops. No more."
It seems Sir David Attenborough's warnings about the dangers of plastics to oceans have been taken very much to heart. British milkmen, for example, are accumulating new customers at a great rate, as consumers return to glass bottles. Despite added expense, consumers are impressed by the fact that a glass bottle can be used 20 times. A milk supply company in Hampshire has registered 3500 new customers since January, a London one 2000.
Now writer Margaret Atwood is organising a petition urging Starbucks to replace its plastic cups with cardboard ones; coffee bars in Greece would do well to take the same action.
Greece would also do well to consider its huge consumption of water in one-use plastic bottles. The world purchases a million plastic bottles per minute, and 91 per cent of this quantity is not recycled. England has recently launched its Refill campaign: the aim is that shops, cafes, various outlets and water fountains will provide free water bottle refill facilities in every town and city by 2021.
Pure water for everybody, available free, was a Victorian ideal, hence the number of water fountains still in English streets. Contemporary Australians copied this example, yet last time I checked, the water fountains on the St Kilda esplanade were not working. Still, change happens: one has only to live long enough.
Gillian Bouras is an expatriate Australian writer who has written several books, stories and articles, many of them dealing with her experiences as an Australian woman in Greece.