garrett wants bags gone by years end, page-19

the thing is, is that people do not change their behaviour, unless it affects the hip pocket.

sadly we do not have a aldi store in west aust - but it would be great that people are charged for plastic bags. when watso is waiting in the line, and he sees people put a couple of items in a plastic bag, he cringes a little - gosh - look at a loaf of bread, it already is in a nice plastic bag, but people still use another bag. if people just use a bit of common sense, and reused a few bags, the number of bags that are used could be reduced considerably. it is no big deal to take a few bags with you, when going shopping - watso usually stuffs the bags back into his back pack, or if he goes with the wife in the car - he stuffs a few in her handbag, and has a crumpled half a dozen in his own pockets.

the same attitude about oil. petrol in america is dirt cheap (americans pay about US$3 per gallon - and watso cannot be bothered converting from US gallons, to imperial gallonand then to litres, and then adjsuting for the exchange rate) - so it is squandered - and the united states consumes a quarter of the worlds oil. europeans who pay a lot more for oil, on a per capita basis, use about half the oil of the americans - and they still have a high standard of living. bush senior, at some conference said something along the lines of "the american way of life will not be sacrificed" - in relation to oil. if the americans were not such oil guzzlers, there would be far less tensions in the world.