Dilemma. Its a Greek word meaning two propositions, two choices. The visualization as horns came later signifying a choice between two options both likely cause pain. We all, no matter how wealthy or talented or lucky, eventually find we are limited. We cannot have it all because we are limited: by time, by resources, by physical limitations, by our ability to focus on only a limited number of goals. So, we make the trade-offs which we think are best.
I spent some time a few years ago photographing a small coastal neighborhood on the outskirts of Jakarta. I was there because the community had been inundated with trash clogging their waterways from villages lining the rivers which carry trash into the sea, but not before collecting in a veritable landfill in this seaside village. Alot of people who saw the pictures commented on how sad and horrible it is to see all of that plastic trash, so I wanted to give a little fuller picture of why this happens and why it is so difficult a problem to overcome. Just stop using plastic, or at least cut back on buying products with plastic packaging – right?
Well if it were that simple it wouldn’t be a problem. Here’s why it is. Plastic is a solution to a lot of problems that people used to have. Most people are too young to remember milkmen, but 40-50 years ago there were actually people who drove around in trucks delivering glass bottles of milk to people’s doors every morning. Glass bottles for something non-alcoholic, not from France or Scotland? Glass and metal were the only available containers for liquid products at the time. It doesn’t sound so; bad both are recyclable minus breakage, so why did people switch to plastic in the first place. There were probably lots of reasons, but I’m going to guess that weight was a big one. Think of the weight of all of those glass bottles and the additional fuel for trucks hauling that weight around.
Choosing plastic was an economic decision then. And it still is. When you look at much of the plastic swirling in the drains and streams of an impoverished place and what you see most frequently is little packets of soap, shampoo and other single use products. A sachet of shampoo in Indonesia costs about 1,500 rupiah (about US 10 cents) while a plastic bottle costs about 90,000 (about US 5 dollars) and even though it is cheaper per ml, the overall expenditure for an entire bottle is too much to spend at one time for many people. The remainder of the limited income has to be spent on food or rent or electricity or other necessities.
Plastic packaging has become a necessary choice for many, and one which has put people with limited resources on the horns of a dilemma. They don’t like being surrounded by platic trash any more than you would.