Use and Throw

I had a friend yell ‘use and throw!’ in my face today when I asked him whose bottle of water was lying around during a social gathering. He said, “Do you expect people to carry their bottle around and drink it?” Well, my bad! If it was a bottle with a hard drink, I’m sure it wouldn’t have been lying around half drunk but I was stupid enough to assume that bottles of water were as precious as those drinks. I was bonkers thinking that the bottles were arranged for people for their convenience and ease. I thought the portable water was to be used and not left lying around to be thrown into a garbage bag. I evidently thought wrong!

This was an annual get-together of a prayer group- a group that prayed and thanked the Lord for his blessings and wonders, for his kindness and mercies; a group that prayed for the less fortunate that the Lord may be kind to them. Such noble intentions have to be celebrated with food and of course, by wasting it. This great phenomenon is seen very often at social gatherings- parties, clubs, picnics, food joints, restaurants, buffets, weddings, and most importantly- benefits. People serve themselves more than they require and feel no guilt whatsoever in throwing the excessive leftovers into a bin. But dare you say a word about people who survive on one meal and the children who die of thirst and starvation! You will be mocked upon and asked to eat/drink the leftovers so that they don’t go to waste.

This slogan of ‘use and throw’ has seeped into every aspect of life. We’ve grown so arrogant that we’ve begun taking our privileges for granted.

As a child in school, my parents made sure I took care of my belongings and didn’t lose them. If lost, I wouldn’t get a replacement. This policy even included objects like pencils, erasers, pens, books and I hate misplacing or losing things even today. In college, I came to find that people were constantly borrowing things, especially pens, from me- pens that I favoured writing with, pens that I was kind enough to lend, pens that were never returned to me. I began to feel the effect of ‘use and throw’ phenomenon.

Everything today is slowly becoming a part of the ‘use and throw’ attitude. The phrase has turned into a lifestyle where the environment we live in, the people we live with, the attitudes and principles that defined us are now all dispensable. Everything has been reduced to mere objects that are useful one day and dispensable the next. The most blaring example being the cases of sexual violence and rapes that have taken place. Rapes that are committed to display power, authority, prove a political or communal point where the life of the victim was a mere pawn, where a little girl or baby became completely dispensable.

In this hypocritical world, we must be careful of what we say or we could also be used and thrown.