No Matter Where You Go, The Trash Follows

I set off on my journey to the 7th World Water Forum in South Korea with lofty goals: make a difference in the world, complete a project, live in the most eco-friendly way possible, communicate and connect, and most practically, create no trash while on my trip. I really did not like the idea of travelling to another country just to leave behind a pile of trash in my wake. I felt that trash would somehow be a permanent legacy of my trip, when likely I would never be going back there to clean it up. Why should I contribute to Korea's garbage pile? When camping in New Jersey, or anywhere else for that matter, we always operate on the premise of "leave no trace behind." We chose items with little packaging, pick up trash in the woods as we camp, and clean up after ourselves when we leave. The irony is we are simply carrying out our trash to be dumped elsewhere. I somehow thought that I could generate no trash on a seven day trip to another country, or create so little trash that I could carry it with me back to America. But I found that the epidemic of use-once-and-throw-out followed me wherever I went. There was no escaping the trash. However, like many things I have come to learn in life, it is small steps that usually make a difference. It is very hard to change by leaps and bounds. I need to just take everything one step at a time.

It started with the airplane. Much to my dismay every meal, snack, and drink they served came with trash. The flight attendants had to walk up and down the aisles several times just to collect trash. The ear plugs alone were wrapped in plastic, inside a plastic bag, inside another plastic bag with the eye mask. And most people just threw their earplugs out without even using them. Another giant disposable was the blanket and pillow they gave us. Do those get re-used? Or are they simply thrown out at the end of the trip? Even if they are somehow recycled into fibers that is a huge waste for every international flight all over the world every day. I was so dismayed by the end of my flight about the bag full of trash I had generated in just fourteen hours.

Needless to say, I was disappointed. I was sad with myself for so easily giving in, and sad for our society that we have created so many laws to protect ourselves that we end up endangering ourselves.

When we arrived for the first night in Seoul, I was pretty proud of us. We ate at a local restaurant, used regular chopsticks and cups they had in house, and didn't generate too much trash.

I did pretty well the next day. We ate at a local house that specialized in a traditional polluck soup meal. No trash except that paper napkins. Not too bad. 

Though there was the paper coffee cup from the awesome coffee house.....

And the water bottles on the train to Daegu.....but all in all it was a pretty low-key day, trash-wise. 

It picked right back up again the first day of the Forum. Breakfast consisted of a paper cup of coffee (no, I did not bring my reusable travel mug on my trip : ( I packed too many clothes instead....) and packaged pastries from 7 Eleven. 

What really got to me though were the water bottles. Free water bottles were everywhere. It seemed like a joke to me that we were at a global conference to discuss water issues, including ocean plastic, and everywhere I turned there were disposable water bottles. There was a really good opportunity to provide us with a reusable water bottle at the beginning of the forum, when we received our awesome messenger bags with Forum information, but regrettably, it did not happen that way. There were no huge cisterns of water, only endless water bottles. There were only two recycling bins in the entire complex, and they were behind ropes and inaccessible. 

South Korea does have a national recycling program. According to the United Nations Environmental Program, the country's "Extended Producer Responsibility" program has recycled 6.0637 tons of waste in the first five years of its activity. The program required importers and manufacturers to recycle a certain percentage of waste every year. However, while the percentage of waste recycled continues to rise, so does the amount of waste generated by the country ( http://www.unep.org/ ), waste such as our water bottles here. This reminds me of a situation I encountered in the US. In New Jersey, where I live, you can find recycling bins at major stores, shopping centers, and public places. Recycling bins are becoming more and more common in public settings. However, when I traveled to Cody, Wyoming, in the summer of 2012, I did not see a single recycling bin anywhere I went. I'm assuming that more rural areas in the US do not recycle as much as urban areas. Perhaps the same is true in Korea. Daegu is a fairly large city of approximately 2.5 million people (around the size of Houston or Chicago), however, perhaps recycling has more of a presence in the capital city of Seoul. Another possible explanation is that recycling programs target industry more than commerce.

Everyday at lunch there were more disposables. We received awesome food from the Forum in the form of boxed lunches to accommodate many dietary needs. I picked up the vegetarian option everyday, and it was great. It was really nice to have my considerations taken into account. They were packed in recycled cardboard, which was nice. But we received plastic forks and knives along with it. And the meal came with prepackaged condiments inside. So everyday, I wound up with this:

I'm not saying this to be a stick-in-the-mud. Nor am I criticizing the conference. The conference was fantastic and extremely well run. I'm writing this because we know we can all do better. At a conference hosted for 30,000 Environmental Professionals and Engineers, we can share. We can share our condiments in large pots. We can share our water dispensers and drink tap water in reusable bottles. We can scoop our food from common trays. We can bring our own coffee mug. Environmentalists are one group of consumer from whom businesses can demand more responsibility. Environmentalists love to try new things and break old behavioral patterns. We don't mind, no, we actually like going out of our way to save a piece of trash from the landfill. We want our tidy little conveniences to be swept out from under us and be told to do better. So why am I saying this? I had the silly idea of forgoing my conference agenda and just focusing on getting more recycling bins in the Forum. But I don't think I would have gotten anywhere with that. I'm beginning to see in life that it is the small things that make a difference. I don't know if I as one person could have gotten a conference to change its format in four days. I'm beginning to think I couldn't. But what I can do is start with me. Everyday. That is what I am bringing back to America.

So my reusable coffee mug and water bottle have been hooked to my side since I returned. So far everyday has been a (reusable) bagged lunch at work, and that makes me feel good. On a little larger scale, I contacted WasteManagement for a complete guide to recycling in our single-stream dumpster, and emailed it to my office. I can try to plan my meals out so I don't have to purchase disposable items. And lucky for us, there are lots of recycling bins in New Jersey. And what else? I am writing this blog. I'm writing this blog so we can all keep talking with each other about how we wouldn't mind bringing our own silverware to a conference, or how cool it might be to get some gochujang from a big ol' squirt bottle.

So what do you think? Could I have done better? What could I have done differently?