THE PLASTIC TREE
Driving into the interior and glimpsing the stark, arid mountain-dominated landscape dotted with a minimal vegetation cover of small, stubby bushes and trees, I am often pained to observe what initially appear to be welcome splashes of color in the surrounding neutral monotone. These appearances of color are actually multiple avatars of plastic: bags, wrappers, bottles, and lids. They bank on sides of the roads, congeal at the bottom of parched wadis, or immure themselves in tree branches, like giant, over-sized fruits.
The poisonous effect of the plastic on the environment notwithstanding, there is also something quite squalid about plastic besmirching the clean, pure lines of the Omani landscape. In midst of the minimalist landscape, the plastic is an unwelcome intruder, an alien force attempting to colonise the land. The plastic bag laden tree therefore becomes an apt yet dispiriting symbol of the steady encroachment of plastic upon nature.
The Environmental Society of Oman introduced the anti plastic-bag campaign almost a year ago through which it relentlessly urged retailers and consumers alike to recognize the enormous damage that plastic is capable of and indeed, does inflict on the environment. Awareness is gradually trickling down although I still encounter the bemused faces of cashiers as I load groceries in a jute bag or super-efficiently pack goods in a plastic bag when I do find myself using them. The guy at my local bakery now has long stopped reaching out for a plastic bag whenever I go to purchase a loaf of bread. “Plastic is bad, Madam,” he sympathized with me the other day. Yet, even then, my heart sinks whenever I go to yet another beach or wadi to find the plastic scattered all over, its invisible users long having vanished.
During the Eid holidays, I set out for a picnic on one of the beaches located on the new express Sur-Muscat highway. My family and I chose to picnic beneath a small copse of trees, the sea a glittering and inviting band of steel blue in the distance. While lunching, we were amused to notice a quartet of four donkeys making their way towards us, as if in a bid to join the picnic. Seemingly unsatisfied by the tidbits of chapattis that we offered to them, one of the donkeys then discovered a long abandoned white plastic cup amid the gravel; after artfully placing it in his mouth, he contemplatively chewed and bit upon it for some time before eventually flinging the now cracked cup away. For all the obtuseness the donkeys are associated with, this particular one knew that it was not to be consumed.
The ubiquity of plastic in the urban landscape means that we take it for granted: it is an inescapable part of our existence. However, it is while encountering its presence in the natural world that one becomes aware of how alien it actually is and why it warrants being eradicated. Nonetheless, while complete eradication of plastic from every day life still unfortunately remains a distant possibility, we can at least be sensible, responsible, and thoughtful consumers of plastic when we are compelled to use it. Otherwise, ironically, just as it has firmly entrenched itself in the urban environment, the plastic will too insidiously become part of the natural world, blurring the line between artificial and natural environments until it is too late.
Author:
Priyanka Sacheti is an independent writer and journalist based in Muscat; her area of interest being primarily cultural journalism, she enjoys writing about art, heritage/culture, fashion/design, and gender. Her articles have appeared in Gulf News, Guardian Weekly, and USA Today. Having published three volumes of poetry during her school-years, she is also very much interested in creative writing; three of her short stories have been accepted for publication in upcoming anthologies. She is currently working on a historical novel and a collection of creative non-fiction pieces.
