Footprints
My Malaysian in-laws live in a small village surrounded by oil palm plantations. The nearest city is one hour away by car and they go there only a few times a year. They have never been outside of peninsular Malaysia and have never been on a plane. Work and local markets are within 10 km and they use a moped to get there. They do not purchase processed food from supermarkets and buy fresh, locally produced food in small quantities. Leftovers are fed to neighbourhood chickens and cats. The rest is recycled by an army of ants. In a month, maybe one garbage bag of inorganic waste is produced. Hardly anything is thrown. We got them a new refrigerator years ago and they still keep the old one to store books and old news papers...
Ours is too big
Together with my wife and four-year-old daughter I use too many resources. Our footprint is 7.9 hectares, even bigger than the Dutch average of 6.3 and more than three times the global average. We throw a lot of food that has gone bad because of poor planning. Even beef. We produce one full garbage bag of inorganic waste per week, excluding plastics, paper and glass which we separate. I do not know the source of the electricity we use, probably Dutch gas or French nuclear. In 2014 we used 3108 kWh of it. Less than the years before, but still more than the Dutch average. We also used 1345 m3 gas for heating and cooking, and 85 m3 water for washing, flushing, cooking, drinking and gardening. Last year we travelled 100.000 km by plane and 20.000 km by car. We buy more toys, clothes and electronic devices than we need.
It was not always like this
My parents did not raise me this way. They cooked enough food and little was wasted. Meat came in small portions and not every day. Holidays were spent camping somewhere in Europe. I was 21 years old when I took the plane for the first time. As a student I did not own a car and lived in dorm rooms that ranged in size from 8 to 14 m2. TV, washing machine and refrigerator were shared with other students. But then I graduated and got a job. Income rose, I met my wife, we bought a house, had a baby, got a car. Time became scarce and money was no longer limiting our options. My daughter was two months old when she was on her first flight to Malaysia. This all happened gradually but over the years the cognitive dissonance grew. Until now I was able to soften it with symbolic choices like driving a hybrid car, occasionally buying fair-trade food and sorting waste. But this hardly helps.
How to do better?
Last month we started to reduce the amount of meat and fish in our diet. Four days a week we now stick to a vegetarian diet and limit animal products to dairy and eggs. We rely on HelloFresh to provide us with healthy vegetarian food that is easy to cook and tastes good. I became a more conscious food consumer: less processed and more fresh and organic, chicken over beef, local and seasonal over import. Next month, solar panels which will cover my electricity use. Next week I will start a Coursera course: 'Introduction to Life Cycle Environmental Assessment'. I need to improve my knowledge to make better choices.
My goal: by the end of this year my footprint will be lower than the global average. I will probably need to cheat a bit by offsetting my fuel consumption with CO2 compensation plans. We still want to visit the in-laws in Malaysia, and Dutch homes still require heating - despite last year being the warmest in recorded history.
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| Closed-loop beef production in my in-laws' garden |
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