Field Note: BYOB, aka, Bring Your Own Bag…
CAUTION: Caustic. Biting. Not for members of Convenience Culture.
Living on the coast changes your perspective.
At least it should.
Out here, plastic isn’t an abstract policy debate.
It isn’t an opinion.
It isn’t something people argue about on television.
It hangs from wax myrtles after storms.
It catches in live oaks.
It drifts through marsh grass.
It washes into the sound.
Living here makes consequences harder to ignore.
Unless, of course, your perspective extends no farther than your own convenience.
Plastic grocery bags.
Ice bags.
Styrofoam.
Plastic bottles.
Plastic straws.
“The paper straw got soggy.”
Wah.
“Someone poked themselves with a metal straw.”
Wah.
“I don’t know how to vet my news.”
Wah.
Meanwhile...
Well, that convenience plastic, it just don’t politely remain in trash cans, y’all.
Plastic doesn’t stay in parking lots.
It rides the wind.
Down storm drains.
Around wax myrtles.
Into live oaks.
Across the dunes.
Into the marsh.
Into the sound.
Into the Atlantic.
Funny how gravity works on groceries...
but not grocery bags.
Somewhere along the way, stewardship became political theater.
I’ve watched concern for marshes and sea turtles become a punchline.
On the wall of a local restaurant:
SEA TURTLES ARE DELICIOUS.
A jab at conservation efforts.
A joke about nesting protections.
A little political wink for anyone who finds environmental stewardship hilarious.
I’ve heard reusable grocery bags described as anti-American.
I’ve watched ordinary stewardship recast as crazy, fake, or unpatriotic.
I’ve watched local people turn against efforts meant to keep their own waters clean, their communities safe, and their catches healthy.
The absurdity still shocks me.
Especially when the same people carrying water for developers insist they don’t want developers building housing projects in their towns.
SAVE OUR ISLAND!
SEA TURTLES ARE DELICIOUS!
Apparently, no one sees the connection.
The us vs them is being repackaged as us against ourselves.
Not between coastal development and damaged ecosystems.
Not between political propaganda and local resistance.
Not between demanding endless convenience and expecting someone else to absorb the consequences.
We are being trained to believe convenience is freedom.
We are being trained to believe convenience is entitlement.
We are being sold the expectation that someone else should provide it.
We are being maneuvered, manipulated, and herded into distrusting conservation and stewardship.
This is the culture of freedom developers are selling.
Someone else should clean it up.
Someone else should pay for it.
Someone else should absorb the damage.
THE PLAYBOOK
If someone raises a concern...
Mock them.
Turn them into a punchline.
Watch the Judys fall in line.
While everyone argues over paper versus plastic, someone else gets the permits.
Someone else gets the contracts.
Someone else gets the profit.
