KADAITCHA

Yesterday in the Stupormarket (a throwaway poem)

People’s heads overflow with plastic crap
Disposable thoughts
Bags
Lives
Wasted
Thrown onto the global garbage heap
To choke other species with trash
And then their own
The final backlash
Don’t care is made to care
when there’s none left to do the caring
Gobble gobble gobble
They can’t be bothered to remember to bring
Recyclable bags to the stupormarket
Eyerolling addicted octogenerians
Bubble wrapped the future
A plastic floating continent
On expansion of forgetfulness
Parasitical capitalism breeds
Superfluous boastfulness
of having so much
You can afford to discard
Without a thought or care
Trolley rage goes national
Surging through rigid brain aisles
Even the checkout boy complains
Take take take
Tupperware mentalities
Consume consume consume
Chuck the leftovers into the ravine
To poison the oceans and streams
Buy buy buy oblivion
It’s what civilised humans do
The way it’s always been they say
Nimby nimby nimby numbskulls

Jinjirrie, July 2018

Deakin University’s Centre for Employee and Consumer Wellbeing behaviour researcher Dr Paul Harrison the disconnect had to do with “the difference between an attitude and a behaviour”.

“People can say, ‘I like the idea of having to bring my own bags’, but people struggle with those things. You can say you’ll do something but whether you’ll do that are two different parts of the brain,” Dr Harrison said.

“Getting into neuroscience, the prefrontal cortex says, ‘Yes of course I can do that’, but the prehistoric brain says, ‘I’ll just keep doing what I’ve always done.'”