.::* Living and Dreaming *::.

"First Step" - A project by an AIESECer

The other day, an AIESECer approached me and told me about a project that he is working on called "First Step". His initiative involves promoting the concepts of "My Bag" and "My stick" where you bring your own re-usable shopping bag instead of using the bags provided by stores and where you bring your own re-usable chopsticks where ever you go to avoid using the disposable chopsticks in restaurants. He called the "bag" and the "chopstick" symbols of "a disposable days" which I find really true.

It really surprises me why restaurants would use disposable chopsticks in a country that has no room for waste. Sure, they burn their garbage and they're heavy into recycling, but the process of recycling also produces waste - more energy is used to recycle things than to make something from scratch. This raises another question in my mind. Why do companies use so much packaging? Quite often, I buy a bag of something, say candy and I open the bag to find that every piece is individually wrapped. Maybe this is to prevent me from eating the whole bag of candy at once but it seems like such a waste...even if it does get recycled, it seems contradictory. Why create more work for yourself?

Anyways, back to the project. The point is for us to address the issues of the environment and "My Bag" and "My Chopstick" are the first steps for us to act on.

The first event for this project was for us to go watch "An Inconvenient Truth" yesturday. It's a pretty interesting movie, most of it is about global warming but there is also alot about Al Gore's life outside of his work around global warming. What frustrated me most was that it seemed like the answer to global warming is in the hands of stubborn politicians. Even if everyone on the world took a small step in doing something for the environment, it doesn't amount to what a new act or law related to global warming can do. That is just what I felt from the movie, I am sure there is more to it.

In March, there is going to be a trip to Kyoto to see the "Community Service" of a super market chain called AEON. They are planning to start a "pay-shopping bag movement" which I think is similar to what The Real Canadian Superstore does in Canada.

Then in April, there is going to be a seminar about "My Bag" where I guess they're going to make me talk about shopping bags because the goal is to "know about shopping bag in foreign countries". We'll also be reflecting back on the whole project and see where we've gotten ourselves.

I'm kind of excited. I've never been in an environmental club before even though I've always wanted to do my part.

posted by ~diana~ @ 7:26 AM