Stitching torn socks could help save the planet!

Edinburgh, March 9 (ANI): Scotland's new environment minister has said that people should learn to stitch their torn socks, among learning other traditional activities from their elders, in order to lead greener lifestyles and save the planet.

According to a report in The Scotsman, the advice by Roseanna Cunningham, the new environment minister, came as a survey revealed that people in Scotland saw the environment as a global issue rather than a local one.

The results of the Ipsos Mori survey of more than 3,000 Scots showed an equal number of people - 35 per cent - believed the economy and the environment were among the most important issues facing the world today.

However, just 12 per cent thought the environment was one of the most important issues facing Scotland.

"One of the challenges is for more people to understand that the Scottish environment is part and parcel of the global environment, and what happens elsewhere in the world is not unrelated to what happens in Scotland," said Cunningham.

The new environment minister, who has never owned a car, tumble drier or dishwasher, said our grandparents could teach us how to lead greener lifestyles.

"Our grandparents would have done things automatically that we have long since stopped doing. They would have had the string bag, and they never would have dreamed of wasting food," she said.

"Our grandparents didn't waste things because they couldn't afford to. In a sense, we have to relearn some of the behaviours that once upon a time would have been second nature," she added.

According to Cunningham, it is time we become less materialistic.

"In the 1960s, 70s and 80s, you became defined by the possessions you had, and older things were considered shabby and linked to poverty," she said.

"However, in actual fact, this shiny new, buy-everything-chuck-it-away society is the anomaly in history. It's going to have turned out to be a very expensive anomaly in every way - for our climate, and for our pockets," she added.

"So maybe we should be showing off the darned holes in our socks," she further added.

Cunningham added that the problem was that some people would make fun of that idea.

"However, it's actually making an important point - that we have got to a situation where a darned sock is seen as a failure, when in actual fact, we've got to see a darned sock now as an indicator of people who are taking some care not to be part of a throwaway society," she said. (ANI)