Revive Not Reinvent

As a 90s kid, I often think about how plastics slowly occupied every small aspect of our daily lives — things we once managed perfectly well without.

Back in my childhood, we hardly used any single-use plastic. I still remember:

• Milk used to come from a local milkman with a large metal can. We’d take our own vessels — no plastic pouches.
• For vegetables, my mother always carried a large cloth shopper bag to the market. No plastic carry bags.
• On weekends, I’d go with my dad to buy meat. They either wrapped it in banana leaves or handed it to us in our own containers.
• Groceries? We’d buy them from the neighborhood shop — everything from lentils to spices came in paper covers made from old newspapers.

• And oil? There was a vendor with a pushcart full of oils — gingelly, groundnut, coconut — all sold in loose quantities into the steel containers we carried.

Then one day, a newly opened supermarket came to our town.

We were excited. Everything was colorful, neatly packed — spices, shampoos, snacks — all in shiny plastic wrappers. It felt modern. Convenient. Fancy.

Back then, we didn’t know the impact of this ‘convenience’. We were just excited to be part of the “new.”

But today, when people say:

“Sustainable living is expensive... We need new solutions...” I can’t help but say: We don’t need new inventions — we just need to revive old practices.

We had sustainable systems. We were comfortable. We were connected — to our environment and to our community.

It wasn’t a lifestyle. It was just life.