The Green Thing

This was sent to me last week and I though Iwould share it with you.

> The Green Thing>
>
> In the line at the store, the cashier told an older woman that she
> should bring her own grocery bags because plastic bags weren't good for
> the environment.
>
> The woman apologized to him and explained, "We didn't have the green
> thing back in my day."
> The cashier responded, "That's our problem today. Your generation did not
> care enough to save our environment."
>
> She was right -- our generation didn't have the green thing in its day.
>
> Back then, we returned milk bottles, lemonade bottles and beer bottles to
> the shop. The shop sent them back to the factory to be washed and
> sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over.
> So they really were recycled.
>
> But we didn't have the green thing back in our day.>
> We walked up stairs, because we didn't have an escalator in every store
> and office building. We walked to the market and didn't climb
> into a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two hundred yards.
>
> But she was right. We didn't have the green thing in our day.>
> Back then, we washed the baby's nappies because we didn't have the
> throw-away kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy gobbling
> machine burning up 220 volts -- wind and solar power really did dry the
> clothes. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters,
> not always brand-new clothing.

But we didn't have the green thing back in our day.>
> Back then, we had one TV, or radio, in the house -- not a TV in every
> room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief (remember
> them?), not a screen the size of Yorkshire.
>
> In the kitchen, we blended and stirred by hand because we didn't have
> electric machines to do everything for us.
>
> When we packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, we used a wadded up
> old newspaper to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap.
>
> Back then, we didn't fire up an engine and burn petrol just to cut the
> lawn. We used a push mower that ran on human power. We exercised by
> working so we didn't need to go to a health club to run on treadmills
> that operate on electricity.
>
> But she's right; we didn't have the green thing back then.>
> We drank from a fountain when we were thirsty instead of using a cup or
> a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water.
> We refilled writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and we
> replaced the razor blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole
> razor just because the blade got dull.
>
> But we didn't have the green thing back then.>
> Back then, people took the bus and kids rode their bikes
> to school or walked instead of turning their mums into a 24-hour taxi
> service.
> We had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to
> power a dozen appliances. And we didn't need a computerized gadget to
> receive a signal beamed from satellites 2,000 miles out in space in
> order to find the nearest pizza joint.
>
> But isn't it sad the current generation laments how wasteful we old
> folks were just because we didn't have the green thing back then?
>