Every workday, whether I bring or buy my lunch, I end up with containers and/or wrappers which I keep in a bag in the corner of my office. At the end of the day, I take the bag home and dump it in the recycle bin at my apartment complex. There's no recycling at work - nor at most of the restaurants or stores I may go to for my lunch.
But it's a lot of inorganic, recyclable waste left for me to have a simple meal. So, I take it home.
After hosting dinner at my place, my recycling bag is brimming full. Just one dinner. But everything - EVERYTHING - has packaging from the plastic bags the veggies are in to the package the chicken comes in. Everything.
When I came back from living overseas, the amount of waste was so apparent to me. America runs through resources like like Scrooge McDuck swims in his vault of money.
No wonder President Obama wants to get us on track with environmental concerns and finding solutions to global warming. We squander not just our resources, but a tremendously disproportionate amount of the planet's resources. America is a waste hog.
Of course, the plain and obvious isn't everything.
In 4.5 years of living in Asia, I was often appalled by environmental atrocities I witnessed - especially in third world countries which lack regulation. In most countries of Southeast Asia - people burn their trash. Sure, when the garbage was mostly organic, it made sense. But in Bali and Thailand, I watched people burn piles of plastic wrappers, paper, metal cans, chemicals - in addition to their organic waste. I shuddered to think of the toxicity of the smoke.
In Singapore - one of the cleanest and most environmentally considered countries I've ever been to - neither of the very large condo complexes I lived in had recycling programs. And weekly, every building, every park, every inch of Singapore was sprayed with mosquito spray. Giant, billowing, clouds of poison would rise suddenly to my 4th story condo windows as the groundskeepers made their rounds. Singapore is now malaria and dengue free. But what are the costs? Certainly a country sprayed weekly in poison is a big trade-off...
Thailand, in addition to having to laws about or regard for littering - also must have the world's monopoly on plastic bag use. In Thailand, they'll give you a plastic bag to carry your plastic bag. Every food stand, grocery store, anything store....the plastic bags come free and loose. There must be plenty of plastic bag factories in Thailand. So, it's no surprise that when I was on Ko Jam - a rarely visited island near Krabi, most of the shores were covered in plastic bags, Coke cans, plastic bottles, styrofoam and other trash that had washed up.
In France - much to my surprise - I couldn't find a recycling bin anywhere. Not on the streets, not in my hotels. Nowhere. This was shocking for a country whose political discourse is so energy focused and which has tremendous reliance on expensive foreign oil.
Everywhere I've been - there has been some environmental shocker that's caught my attention.
Of course, that doesn't let America off the hook. But it does make me wonder - How do you define an environmental foreign policy? What can and should we ask of others? And what can and should they ask of us? What's fair? And where are the biggest worries? What are the worries that go unnoticed and neglected?
My friend in Japan hates my recycling bin. I can throw anything recyclable in it - and somewhere down the line, there's an automated sorting process. All I have to do is get the goods to the bin - and I have instant karmic gratification.
I think it's brilliant - but she says no, no.
In her town in Japan, everyone not only sorts their recycling, but has to cut and flatten cartons - then tie and bind them. Everything has cleaning and preparation. And of course, recycling is mandatory.
She feels this is better because it makes people aware of their waste. They want to reduce their packaging. People have to take responsibility for what they waste. The big, easy bin lets us continue wasting without awareness, she feels.
To which my response is that if it's not easy, Americans won't do it. If Americans had to slice and prepare their recycling, the cartons would be in the garbage.
But, she has a point. How aware are we of what we waste? And how can we really push to cure anything if we're blissfully detached?
In the Third Word, they pollute often because they can't afford the systems of waste disposal we have. After all, the places that burn trash do so because there is no garbage truck - government can't afford to provide disposal services.
And then there's the industrial issues. Factories that spew waste into rivers. Gas stations without proper safety precautions to prevent leaks into the soil under and around. Fumes, smoke and vapors of untold chemicals rising out of manufacturing plants.
While America certainly does its fair share of damage, there's incalculable damage being done in countries that have little to no regulation - the industrializing world. Recently, media has focused on China and the pollution of the Yangtze - but that is just one many pollution horror stories in the developing world.
The world needs a solution to these environmental debacles. Action must be taken.
And yet, isn't it the sad truth that we develop standards and morals only when we can afford them? After all, America and most of the nations of Europe were once unregulated massive industrial polluters. Now, we condemn China for polluting the Yangtze - and take a critical eye to industrial waste in India.
We now understand how damaging industrial waste can be on our environment. We know how absolutely devastating the damage potential of industrialization - especially in highly populated, large developing nations.
We've been there, done that - and we're here to tell you, it's bad. Be ethical. Have standards. We don't know how to industrialize and gain wealth while having them - and we have no alternative model to offer - but just don't pollute.
Of course, no one got in our face and told us how to behave or not behave. When we were dumping into the Great Lakes, had no emission standards on factories and had children working in coal mines - no other power came in on its moral high horse and told us we needed to comply.
We industrialized (and polluted) in peace. We - and most of Europe and Japan - became first world industrial powers. We learned the lessons - but even more so, reaped the rewards. And no one said we were wrong for doing it.
So, now we stand in our success and dominance telling countries following our model, struggling to push through the painful process of industrialization, trying for a better standard of living, what they ought not do.
While we consume and waste more than any other country on Earth.
That commands respect.
Our concerns are no less valid. The world's concerns about us are no less valid. We all come at it from different angles and perspectives based on where we are in economic, social, and political development.
What we lack is a comprehensive policy and approach to today's environmental challenges. And it needs to be one that accounts for the perspectives and needs various societies have. How do we develop a conversation which is respectful, meaningful and productive for all?
I'll think about that while I take my heaping bag of recyclables to the easy-dump bin, grateful that I don't have to clean, slice and prepare everything (yet).
