ReNe: greening

One of the many things I like about Canada is their environment friendliness. A thought that strikes me whenever we go shopping at one of the nearby organic food shops, which we just did. So I'm rather pleased.

On the whole, I'd say Singaporeans are not terribly wasteful, and that's good. They buy less stuff and throw away less stuff than North Americans, though I've been noticing a shift towards more disposables in recent years. However, it was hard to recycle -- I can count on one hand the number of paper recycling bins that were in convenient locations for me, and it was even harder to find recyling bins for stuff other than paper. It was also hard to buy organic; organic produce in Singapore tended to be twice or thrice the price of non-organic produce, and I only know of *one* dedicated organic shop. In the whole of Singapore. And it's *expensive*. (In Toronto, there are *two* organic shops within 5 mins walking distance of our apartment.)

In St Louis, there were recycling bins in my apartment (in fact they were downright common), and it was easy to buy organic; they are usually not much pricier and commonly found in regular supermarkets. Plus, there are huge dedicated organic stores like Whole Foods and Trader Joe's. Buying second-hand stuff is also easy (a practice that is not so common in Singapore). However, as noted in the video clip 'The Story of Stuff' Mike posted a while back, it's not enough to take care of the back-end (that is recycling), one has to also take a hard look at the front-end (that is to buy less stuff). And unfortunately, the American culture is quite consumerist. People will buy trash bags while throwing away or recycling plastic grocery bags. While shopping at Whole Foods, I got the impression that some of the people who shop there do so not because it is more environmentally friendly, but because it is the 'in' thing to do these days. Someone I know likes to collect the Whole Foods paper bags because they're nice and sturdy but she does not re-use them when buying groceries; she looked rather stunned when I pulled out my own bag at the counter... And let me not go into the irony of buying pre-packed cut fruits/salads in plastic containers in an organic shop.

Toronto, in comparison, is more sane. There are recycling bins everywhere, and organic produce is easily available. I see loads of people walking and cycling to work, even in winter. The Canadian culture isn't quite as consumerist as the American culture, though it could be better. And what I really like is how green policies in Canada are passed and adhered to because people genuinely see a reason for it, and not because of the bottom line, as is often the case in $ingapore.