Doing your bit to save the environment

JAKARTA (JP): What exactly do we mean when we talk about an ecological conscience? Is it that we cherish the beauty of nature when we take our families out for a ride on a sunny weekend?

Or that we despise those companies making headlines because of their environmentally destructive production practices?

We may rightfully assume these endeavors are important steps to appreciate and protect the environment, but they don't necessarily reflect our attitude toward nature.

The real degree of our ecological conscience is shown by the impact of our everyday behavior on our surroundings.

What, if anything, is nature in an urban environment like Jakarta?

As I walked down gray Jl. Thamrin during the evening rush hour, with high-rises and walls of corrugated iron all along the sidewalk, billowing sand and dust got into my eyes, nose, hair and every nook and cranny of my clothes.

It seemed like an outworldly hell.

Many areas of Jakarta could serve as telling examples of how skilled humans are at creating environments that seems to have no relation at all to remnants of nature still surrounding the city.

No surprise, then, that some people prefer to stay on the fringes of the city, where the environment is green instead of gray and dusty, and the air still smells like air. They want a place where their children can grow up in a healthy environment.

They can't stand that uncertain feeling that vegetables bought from a peddler might have been grown on a garbage dump. They are fed up with air dirtied by the black soot from exhausts of trucks, buses and the growing convoy of private cars.

Is their flight from the city evidence of an ecological conscience?

Again, while these people may be acutely aware of the impacts of environmental pollution upon them, they may pay little attention to how their own daily actions affect the ecological balance.

Individual behavior does have an impact, as any city or nation is nothing but an aggregation of individuals.

I spent 25 years in Germany, and environmental causes started small there two decades ago. There were cynics saying the efforts were too late anyway as nature had been spoilt.

But we can all do our part. As individuals, we would have problems convincing the government to shut down a factory because of its environmentally destructive practices.

But we can take our own stand by not buying their products. We can decide which products do not have a negative impact on the environment. That is an individual decision and responsibility.

I have made my own contributions to saving the environment, however small they may be, and done what was in my power. Sometimes, I will talk to my neighbor about different issues and she will discuss it with another, and so on. We call that value development.

I still have a hard time in supermarkets when I try to explain to the grocery packers that I don't want the detergent, vegetables, milk and meat packaged separately in a heap of plastic bags of different sizes, which then will be put again into a big one. And I try to convince them that I want them to fill the bags packages to the top, not just halfway.

Which only leads the cashiers and packers to look at me as if I am some strange being from another planet.

"Why do that when the plastic bags are free!" they say.

They are free here, but not in Germany since the environmental movement got its message across. Plastic shopping bags cost the equivalent of Rp 200 each in Germany, and most people bring their own bags from home or use plastic ones sparingly.

Which is something I try to do, not only in supermarkets, but in local markets and with street peddlers, all of them overflowing with big and little plastic bags.

When I want to carry two limes or four onions the 10 meters from the street to my house, vegetable sellers wave off my protests and pack each item in a small black plastic bag.

This all contributes to the mountains of unnecessary waste in many areas of Jakarta, including our neighborhood, where no waste management system exists. You can choose to burn your trash near the house, or pay somebody who takes it to be burned somewhere else, comfortably far away so the toxic fumes won't bother you.

Worst thing of all for both the environment and, ultimately, for our pocketbooks is that mineral oil, a nonrenewable natural resource, is a component in plastic bags. Indonesia will have to import it in the not-so-distant future when its national reserves are exhausted.

What we do as individuals really does make a difference to the environment, and our efforts can and should begin in the home.

-- Silvia Werner