Olden Days and the environment

One of my former students just called me and interviewed me asking questions about what it was like when I was her age. She was focusing on pollution and the environment: physical and social. I explained that some of the issues that are of importance now then did not exist then. The environment was not the buzz word that it is now. We used paper bags for groceries-( I had a conversation with my 90 year old friend on Friday about bags. We tried to remember what we did with garbage before plastic bags. I actually remember clearly: we took out garbage every night after dishes- and no we did not have a dish washer- we did them- still do- before the bag could get wet from fruit and vegetable scraps. We did not compost in those days.) We did not drink water from a plastic bottle. The meat my mother bought from the German butcher (which is still open after 40 years!) was wrapped in butcher's paper. Fast food outlets were about to emerge: I remember that a donut shop opened in the area in the late 60's, KFC opened then too. I have a feeling if we did a survey of these institutions they were founded in the 60's and 70's. Tim Hortons started in the late 60's or early 70's. Rachel Carson's Silent Spring was a warning that was published in the 60's but it was not considered as important as it is now. Most pollution came from industry and I remember that a river in the Midwest actually burst into flame from the oil and pollutants that were on the surface. That was a real wake up.

I will tell you about milk being delivered by horse and carriage when I was young- I lived in the city. A black smith had a shop on my street. Water fountains were often at one of a horse trough.
The world has changed since I was young and very rapidly. Some of it has been good but there are some things we need to rethink but that has always been the case.