Doing your bit to save the environment

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