I was in South Africa this summer and the lack of sustainability didn’t surprise me. I didn’t expect to go down to a developing town and see people recycling and composting or anything, but I guess it was kind of a slap in the face. They may not know about sustainable choices, but we do. And we still do nothing. We drive our cars out to UBC and sit in heated classrooms without even turning the lights down, we may not bother to recycle because were too lazy to walk to the other bin. I guess its what we talked about in class “consumer choice” or preference to ignore.
One day in South Africa, I was talking to the Director of Economic Development in the Municipality that I was working with. He asked me how to implement a recycling program. I was shocked. I wanted to say “Sorry, but you are concerned with recycling right now? What about the people who don’t have a roof on their home, let alone a home, they have no income, no food, nothing and you want to find a way to get the to recycle and compost?” It shocked me.
But then, in my Resource and Environment class, we started talking about Sustainable Economic Development. Apparently it is possibly. But its all about knowledge. I guess that makes sense, but it just surprised me, and made me happy to know that you can develop a community on sustainable grounds, although it might be harder and take a lot longer. Maybe we should start being more sustainable in our developed countries and set a stage for development and sustainability.
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