It’s time to rethink our wasteful society
WHAT do you remember from your school days? Is there anything that stands out for you that you heard from a teacher, a lecturer a trainer that you remember from your years at school, college, apprenticeship? So often it is the ‘sideshow’ events we remember. In preparing this column I asked a colleague, who had studied philosophy, what he remembered from his year’s at college. He thought for a moment and then recalled how a lecturer once told them that it wasn’t necessity that was the mother of all inventions, but instead laziness. Not really a world-renowned philosophical principle. A friend recalled a Br Minogue in CBS Synge Street covering his ears and saying ‘hell is noise’. and the friend quipped: ‘and now I agree with him.’.
I was a student at the Dominican house of studies in Tallaght between 1969 and 1974. Our student master, Fr Delaney, had the nickname Dux. Before coming to Tallaght he had been teaching at the Dominican-run Newbridge College, Latin being one of the subjects he taught. So the nickname Dux probably came from the Latin word meaning ‘leader’. But it may not have been as straightforward as that as he also had a pronounced waddle in his walk.
He was a kind man. Windows and doors were opening in the church and Dux was taking it all on board, even if he was a little nervous. He was a cautious man by nature. He could never understand why I had such long hair. If he were alive today he’d have no reason to suggest I get a haircut.
I remember next to zilch of the philosophy and theology I learned back then but I remember Dux making a comment about the advent of the skip. Skips began appearing in Ireland as an everyday means of getting rid of rubbish in the early 1970s. I can still remember Dux announcing one day that skips were a sign of a throwaway society. He was not impressed. At the time we paid no heed to what he was saying. It was just an old man having a rant at a new-fangled idea. He was in his 40s at the time. What would he know about the modern world? It seemed the skip was the perfect way of getting a job done in as convenient a way as possible. It was and is the modern way of doing things. All true. But Dux was spot on: the skip is also a metaphor for our wasteful society. The word accurately represents the throw-away society. It has taken us close to half a century to realise that the goods of the world are not infinite and it’s time to rethink how we manage our waste.
As a young man I always fixed my bicycle punctures. These days I bring the bike to a shop, the tube is replaced with a new one and the punctured tube is binned. It makes no sense. One third of the food we buy ends up in the bin. This can cost the average Irish household up to €1,000 per year. Approximately 50 per cent of Irish people throw away food regularly. It’s cool to go with the flow. But to read the signs of the times requires wisdom and thought.
So often it’s those throw-away comments from our teachers, those in charge of us, which leave lasting impressions on us. A day seldom passes without my thinking about Dux and his comment on skips. A wise man. indeed.