Squinty wrote:I think we know what their objectives are here. It's still a waste.
With respect, if you see this and worry about the milk then you have missed the point.
Rocsteady wrote:Dowbocop wrote:Carlos wrote:Dowbocop wrote:Carlos wrote:kazanova_Frankenstein wrote:Jenuall wrote:People have some really weird priorities about the things that upset/frustrate them.
Try not to let it get to you mate.
The thing is I can see their point. In fact I actually quite like plant based milk and have oat milk most days on my cereal and in my tea. In Asda it's also cheaper than dairy.
But all that wasted milk could have gone to some struggling mothers who have hardly any money and a toddler to wean off of formula or breastfeeding. Why not buy the milk and donate it to charity and/or the homeless to highlight plant based alternatives and bring attention to people living on the streets which has only gotten visibly worse over the last decade?
Transitioning to a plant based future by buying people cow's milk?
:
Donating it to charity is a more useful way to stop the public buying it than just throwing it onto the floor.
They're not conducting a strategic terrorist raid on the milk grid to disrupt national supplies - they are making an overt and deliberately visible protest to spark debate. The milk itself does not matter. I worked in a coffee shop for three years so I'm confident I've dropped more milk on the floor than that entire group did without even trying. Focusing on "wasting food during a cost of living crisis" is a complete misframing of their objectives. Buying and donating milk might be "a more useful way to stop the public buying it" (and by definition it isn't unless they move into large scale shoplifting), but it's about as brave and subversive a political action as using a zebra crossing.
Bloody hell you must have been messy.
If that protest had happened while I was working on Morrisons for a barely liveable wage, I would not have been impressed at some rich kids coming in and pouring out 10+ litres of milk with the knowledge that I'll have to mop it up. It's degrading.
I did say that I've had to deal with large milk spills myself before, and we couldn't exactly stop lunchtime service while I moved the fridge out of the way to clean it all up. It's a crap job. I've also had to deal with disruptive industrial action in my shop - a quick forum search shows I actually moaned about it on here back in 2010! I worked in a university coffee shop and somebody set off our building's fire alarms during a tuition fees protest - absolutely pointless, really quite dangerous, and massively disrupted our day. So I totally sympathise with whoever had to clear up the mess (in fairness these protesters did apologise to the staff who were inconvenienced so they sympathised as well, even if you may think it's scant consolation).
I was mightily pissed off that day in 2010! So what's different? Perhaps most obviously: it ain't me cleaning it up! It's an important point I would be remiss not to admit, but my cynical selfishness is definitely not the whole story. In the twelve years since I moaned on here about my protest we've had twelve years of the Tories, Brexit, Trump, BLM, Covid, Crimea - so many signs that the world is completely strawberry floated, without even mentioning the climate crisis! I'm older and hopefully wiser, and can see that people talking direct action to at least try and make the world a better place is a direct result of the world not being good to start with - don't blame the medicine for the disease.
I understand the viewpoint of the clean up crew because I have been in similar situations. However, if you take a step back and think about what is actually at stake with climate change, then I honestly think that having to clean up a bit of wasted milk isn't that big a hardship.
For sure.
