ROSEMARY ABBOTT | Culture
SAVIOUR TO SINNER
Genevieve Bailey is in a state of medium to severe emotional distress after accidentally sipping her organic banana-nutmeg oat milkshake through a plastic straw on Cuba Street this morning.
The 25-year-old Aro Valley woman initially assumed it was some new compostable invention made from recycled kombucha scobies, but upon closer inspection, the horror set in.
“It had a shine to it. A gloss. I knew immediately this was petroleum-based. I’d been oil-sipping in public,” she told our reporters as she attempted to discreetly discard the plastic straw.
“I just kept saying, ‘I’m one of the good ones. I compost! I don’t own a car! I only buy clothes from Instagram vintage pages and Recycle Boutique’.”
Close friend Ruby Shepherd, who was sitting with Bailey at the time, said she knew something was wrong when Genevieve went completely silent mid-rant about the microplastics in mascara.
“She just froze. Stared at the straw like it had personally funded deep sea drilling. Then she whispered, ‘I used plastic… in Wellington… on a weekday and inside a cafe on Cuba Street,’” said Shepherd. “It was haunting.”
Bailey says she doesn’t blame the café, only herself.
“I should’ve known. I should’ve tested it first. Bent it, sniffed it, held it up to the light like we do at the sustainability co-op,” she said. “You just don’t think these things can happen to you. But they can. They do.”
More to come.
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