posted by Catherine on Sep 6
How can you stay healthy abroad when you try to be eco friendly?
I recently returned from a trip to somewhere a lot warmer than I was used to and I found that I broke nearly all the normal rules of eco friendly living!
We all know that it is not always possible to act as green as you usually do when away from home - but I found myself slipping up on holiday with many basic health issues. And I am a hardened eco girl! However traveling with no-so-eco people made it harder.
Cold Drinks!
No matter how well prepared we thought we were, we nearly always needed to buy cold bottled drinks when we were out.
We had taken a thermos flask to keep our own drinks cool which we prepared in the rooms before we left - but we were not able to ever carry enough cold materials. This then resulted in us buying bottle after bottle of ice cold drinks.
This had more than 1 thing wrong with it as well.
1) It had to be cold otherwise it wouldn’t stop us from over-heating - so therefore it had to be kept chilled in the stalls and cafes we brought them from.
2) It was nearly always a small ‘handy’ size bottle as they tended not to keep or chill the larger bottles.
3) The stalls didn’t offer many brands that were not international brands. Some were bottled in the country but most weren’t - so we were feeding global companies.
4) There were very few recycling facilities by these stalls so once drunk (straight away as we were so hot) if it wouldn’t fit in our bags - it had to be thrown in the normal litter bin.
Air-Conditioning:
I know how bad using the air coolers are - and I rarely like to use them anyway - but other tourists have demanded them over the years and so they are ever present.
Annoyingly as well, retail customer service also seems to entail that stores leave their doors open to seem ‘welcoming’ so allowing all the cool air to flow out into the streets. Additionally, stores that didn’t have air-con were chilling all the western foods like chocolate (in mini but open fridges) so that we would feel more at home.
It felt awful to have been a part of creating that. However, it was virtually impossible to avoid stores that were using too much energy as nearly every store was doing so - and walking to a more environmentally conscious store to make me feel better would have physically made me feel worse - as it was so hot!
And no doubt I would have had to have brought another cold drink on arrival and then risk my shopping being ruined or melted by the heat while I walked home!
What To Eat?
While we did try our hand at the local foods and the local restaurants, we were self-catering and so had the opportunity to eat what we wanted - however not being at home or having the luxury of our normal kitchen equipment, we found ourselves buying small packets of pre-packed items rather than larger and fresher bulk items.
We also ate out a few times, only to find ourselves looking for the most frequented destinations - which happened to be filled with other tourists.
And to a certain extent the local products had no ethical buying chain that I could check out. I mean buying a locally made pizza slice could have a whole ‘bad’ process behind it.
For example, I had no way of finding out if all the ingredients were imported and if so where from. How were they cooked, stored or transported? How were the animals treated before they were used for my topping? Was it better to buy a western brand that I knew was flown across the globe but had acceptable preparation standards - or buy unbranded foods that could have been created with meat that was not ethically sourced, for example?
My Eco Dilemma continues in a few days with Part 2
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