“The best education I have ever received was through travel.”
Lisa Ling, Journalist
One of my favorite things about traveling is having a window into how other people live. Visiting new places – another community, state, or country – can always teach us something interesting. Last fall, I was lucky to get to meet two friends in northern Spain to walk part of the Camino de Santiago. It was a meaningful adventure, and had a deep impact on me. I also came home with a few takeaways on sustainability.
Slowing down
In the US, we constantly consume meals and drinks on the fly. We carry drinks and snacks around, and often eat while walking and driving. So, after landing in Madrid, I grabbed a coffee and pastry while waiting for my train north. As I nibbled, I looked around and suddenly realized I was the only one with food in my hand. There was also zero food trash around. This caught me by surprise.
Spanish people sit and enjoy their meals or drinks slowly and socially. Outside of tourist areas, I saw virtually nobody walking with food or drinks. Meals in Spain are not rushed, and the food is simple and fresh. This habit is certainly better for digestion and overall health, not to mention relationships.
Takeaways on sustainability
From a sustainability standpoint, the big benefit of sitting down for meals is that food and drinks are served with “real” plates, cups, and cutlery. This creates so much less waste from packaging, and there is a noticeable lack trash hanging around.
Locals rarely buy water or other drinks in plastic bottles, but if you do buy one, the cap is attached to the bottle by a small plastic tab. This is ingenious, and makes me wonder why American bottles don’t have this feature. Most recycling centers in the US will only recycle caps if they’re on the bottle. Loose plastic caps are a nightmare for recycling machinery and they’re also easily dropped. If you pay attention, you will see them on the ground all over the place.
There isn’t a debate between plastic and paper straws in Spain because they just don’t use straws. It makes you wonder, do we really need straws for most drinks? On the plane home, we were given wood cutlery for our meal. Less single-use plastic is always a good thing.
Another area where there is no need for debate In Spain is about paper vs. plastic bags. Bags just aren’t something stores provide in the non-tourist areas. Again, do we really need bags when we’re just picking up an item or two in a shop? Obviously we need something to put groceries in, but if they weren’t provided, would we just adjust to bringing our own? People seem to manage just fine at places like Costco.
Clean energy
There were solar panels on homes all over, and stores in shopping districts sell them. You can just walk into a shop right off the street and buy portable solar panels for your house. If it were easier, maybe people would be more likely to give it a try.
Speaking of solar, there are small solar farms dispersed throughout the countryside. They are unobtrusive and blend in to the landscape. They don’t have the industrial look of a lot of the farms in the US. Wind turbine fields are also common. Again, they are smaller and blend in seamlessly. At one point, we saw wind and solar farms were right next to one another.
Less is more
One final thought – after living out of a backpack for eight days, I realized that in order to be happy, maybe we need less than we think. True, I couldn’t have gone for months with just those few possessions, but I learned that most of what I thought “needed’ I really didn’t. Buying less is a more sustainable way to live, and it also frees us up to appreciate experiences.
I love where I live, but I also like taking ideas from other people and places and trying to incorporate them at home. There is so much we can learn the way other people live – especially when it comes to sustainability.
Let’s do something about climate change. Learn about it. Talk about it. Help solve it.