It's not easy being green

So, I recently admitted that I enjoy being a consumer, that I love these new 24-hour mega-super-markets, and that I'd rather peel off all my skin and roll around in salt than purchase the goods in my local corner shop. Supermarkets are better for one simple reason: choice of products.

But, rather than being allowed to wallow contentedly in the fact that I can eat foods from all over the world; rather than being allowed to marvel with my fellow consumers at the ever shrinking nature of our spinning space-planet; gasp at the wonders of modern technology that allow us to purchase apples from New Zealand and bananas from South Africa; and cosy up in some sort of feelgood "we're all one global village" cotton-wool world; rather than being allowed to do all this, I'm being made to feel guilty. Why? Because I'm not buying local, and thus I am effectively strangling the very same world that I thought was marvellous just a few moments ago.

When did everyone suddenly become so obsessed with the number of air miles their food has travelled before it reaches their plate? I don't really care if my food has travelled to the moon and back four times before I wolf it down. I agree that, in theory, it's a good and moral stand to take, but I have a few issues with it.

The problem that I have with buying local produce is that I live in England, and local produce means cabbage, asparagus and potatoes. Now, I agree that locally grown food can be delicious, if you like that sort of thing. But I don't. I prefer foods that actually taste of something, like chillis, pineapples and mangoes. It's hardly my fault that they don't grow locally, so I have to buy the foods that are imported from Mars or wherever. Why should I punish my taste buds just because I live in a climate where the food I want to eat couldn't, and wouldn't grow, even if you held a gun to its... eh.... roots?

I do actually try to shop locally when I can. When I did my grocery shopping last week, I bought all British fruit and veg (with about three exceptions), so I felt quite proud of myself and I'm sure the checkout clone girl was thinking what a hip and PC young woman I was.

I'm feeling a similar sort of pressure with the car that I drive. When my car was born, the words "fuel" and "efficiency" would never have been uttered in the same sentence, and, thus, my car is a petrol-guzzling behemoth. I would drive a hybrid car if I could afford to buy one, but I can't so I don't. I would car pool with the people at work, insteading of driving to work by myself each day, except I work with just three other people, each of whom lives in the opposite direction from me. I would cycle to work, except I live 35 miles away. I would get public transport except I work in the middle of fucking nowhere and the nearest train station and bus stop are an hour's walk from the office (no exaggeration - I did get the train to work one day. Never again).

I have similar problems with recycling. I used to recycle pretty much everything when I lived in Ireland. I even had a compost bin! But in England, all I'm allowed to recycle is paper (magazines and newspapers), tin cans (beverage cans only, please!), and glass bottles or jars. I can't recycle cardboard and I can't recycle plastic bags, which is just ridiculous. If I did want to recycle these items, I'd have to drive to a specialised centre which is over 50 miles away from where I live, so I'd still be killing the planet with my pollution-belching monster car.

I just can't win.

I want to buy local produce, but I can't get the foods I want to eat locally. I want to buy Fairtrade produce when I can't get it locally, but it costs almost 50% more than "normal" (unfairtrade?) food, and I can't afford that. I want to buy a hybrid or fuel efficient or planet-loving car, but they're also too expensive for my budget. I want to recycle, but the country doesn't have the facilities for me to do so.

So, in summary, I have three things to say:

1. Kermit the Frog said it best when he said: "It's not easy being green".

2. Denis Leary also hit the nail on the head when he said: "I didn't break the planet, it was this way when I found it".

3. I've tried to be a good person. I've tried to look after the planet. I've tried to do the right thing. But, at the end of the day, I figure I'll be long dead before the world becomes some sort of Mad Max-type desert planet.

So, screw the air miles. Screw the pollution. Screw the dolphins getting caught in the tuna nets. Anyone for a spot of tiger hunting?