So following the passport debacle of last week, I made it to Sri Lanka, if you want to hear about it head here
So first things first Sri Lanka is the most beautiful place I have ever been. I am here to have a few meetings with Hotels out here and gauge the knowledge and understanding of the plastic problem across the board. Now the hotels side of thing is boring and you don't want to hear about that. The plastic vs sustainability vs carbon footprint, of the Sri Lankan people is and incredible thing to behold. There are some areas where they put us to shame.
Plastic use is high and there are some of the classics that stand out, plastic straws everywhere, plastic bags are consistently handed out, you have to drink bottled water otherwise you will get sick, but there is a huge amount of recycling of plastic bottles the easiest type of plastic to be recycled.
This in itself made me think about the power that plastic bottle companies have over developing countries, and if we could funnel that money into clean drinking water like we have in the UK then we would eliminate the need for plastic waste.
"Looking at the Plastic Bottle Situation in Sri Lanka, I Feel Like it's a Similar Story to Give a Man a Fish Feed Him for a Day, Teach a Man to Fish Feed Him for Life. If the Plastic Bottle Companies (Who have complete control over the water supply) were to Invest into Proper Filtration, so People Could drink Tap Water. Then No-One Would Buy Bottled Water Here. But Where's The Profit in That? "
Now some of the good things; public transport is simple, rustic, charming. Everyone uses it and I have not been on a bus or train where I haven't been crammed in like a sardine. The buses come regular as you like and they don't drive, they hurtle, somewhat similar to The Night Bus in Harry Potter.
Onto food. The diet is predominantly vegetarian, all the food is locally sourced, without massive amounts of food miles that are attached to some foods we enjoy in the UK. (Avo, Banana, Quinoa etc.)
Then there is the bathroom procedure. I haven't seen a single sheet of bog roll in days. You’re in and out in seconds with a powerful jet of water, fired by what is quite literally a bum gun squooshing out your nether regions. Job done. Now I can hear some of you saying that that's disgusting. Hold on a second let me paint a picture for you, pardon the pun.
You get a bit of dog turd on your hand, you aren't going to just wipe it off with a bit of tissue, enter water, maybe a bit of soap. This is why The Bum Gun is so epic and cleans you up good and proper without using paper, that comes from trees, that remove Co2 from our atmosphere. According to National Geographic: 27,000 thousand trees per day are flushed down toilets worldwide. That's a shitty situation.
What is also a shitty situation is the moment someone plops a paper straws in your drink, if you don't want to find yourself on the receiving end of that kind of atrocity, share this article and click on the link below.
We can't solve all the worlds problems, but we can start with simple actionable changes, and move from there.