The environmental impact of travel

I write this post whilst travelling on a bus from Resistencia to Santiago del Estero. It's a journey of around 600km and I'll be on here for around nine hours. This bus is virtually full, and to be fair, there has only been one bus I've travelled on in my entire trip where it was below 20% occupancy; on the whole, they're well used reducing their carbon emissions per passenger, although of course that doesn't lessen their total output.

The environmental impact of this trip is something that weighs heavily on me. I haven't yet off-set my trip by paying into some carbon capture or other such scheme. At the time of my round the world trip, the BBC had produced its programme on the 10 animals most at risk of extinction and set up a fund to help with the conservation these species and so rather than carbon offset, I used an online calculator to determine what an offsetting cost would be and donated that money to the BBC fund instead. Rest assured I will do something equivalent for this trip, I just haven't decided what yet.

For me, the key issues are the use of fossil fuels and single use plastics, and litter. 

Fossil Fuels

Argentina, Chile and Brazil are bloody big countries and so it goes without saying, to travel around them will have meant I contributed significantly to the use of fossil fuels. I accept that. But I have been horrified by their unnecessary use that could very easily have been prevented. Something that infuriates my Dad is when drivers leave their vehicles idling; I'm totally with him on this. This habit is ubiquitous here. At one border crossing, we had to wait an hour to enter the immigration building, we were in there for around 30-45 minutes and then it took around another 20 minutes for us all to get back on the bus. During that entire period, the engine of the bus was left idling. Even when the driver got off to clear immigration and he locked the bus, he left the engine idling. And it wasn't just our bus doing that, every bus entering that crossing was doing the same thing. And every bus at every bus station does it. Now I'm no bus driver and there may be very good reasons as to why he had to do that of which I'm unaware, but surely in this day and age we can find other ways to negate this need? Funnily enough, as if to prove my point that this isn't necessary, we've just stopped for a comfort break and for the first time on my trip, I'm on a bus where the engine has been turned off, thereby demonstrating that idling isn't necessary.

During the trip, I'll only be taking one flight, other than my flights to and from South America. The bus journey I would have guessed to be around 36 hours, the flight 1.5 and so that was chosen partly to try to reduce my DVT risk. I'm flying direct to and from South America which will have reduced the number of miles, but still, I will have flown around 14,500 miles in total. And the bus journeys must put me around the 18-20,000 miles travelled in total mark. And this can't have been good for the planet.

Single Use Plastics

Single use plastics really seem to have been brought to everyone's attention recently thanks to the lovely David Attenborough. That's not to say we've never been aware of the issues with their use, just that we're now being galvanised into doing something about them. Here their use is extensive, be it bags, cutlery, straws, food trays... In Bariloche, you had to use your own bags in the supermarket, but that was the only place I remember that being the case. Everywhere else it is so hard to get people to not give you a plastic bag. I am viewed with deep suspicion when I go to the supermarket as I always take my own and I am amazed at how abundantly they are distributed. Even this morning in the bus terminal, I just bought a small packet of crackers and had to repeat multiple times 'no me necesita una bolsa' before he finally agreed not to put them in a bag. Of course, this could have been because my accent/Spanish was so bad he didn't understand me but I think it was the request that he couldn't comprehend - why wouldn't I need a bag? At the supermarket in Piriapolis I bought 4 different vegetables: 1 courgette, 1 onion, 2 small potatoes, 1 red pepper. Here, you get the items weighed at the produce section, they put a sticker on the bag and then they can be scanned at the till. I'd put all the items in the same bag, thinking they could stick the four separate stickers on the same bag. But no, she removed the items and returned them to me in four separate single use plastic bags. I could have cried. I did reuse them in various guises as much as I could but it still made me feel bad for knowing that my craving for veg had such a negative impact environmentally. I'm currently travelling on an Andesmar bus 'con servicio' which means I get fed. I had no options for this length of journey during the day other than this, or the more expensive Ejecutivo class downstairs on the bus I'm on where the same issues would apply. We have just had our morning snack and this was my tray. 

That's reusable, but I was given a single use plastic bag to put my rubbish in, the coffee cup is polystyrene, my snack came wrapped in a single use plastic bag, with a single use plastic stirrer and the coffee bag was wrapped in plastic foil. Also included were a tea bag (which I've taken with me as I may use it but if it goes in landfill it will never be used), two sachets of sugar and a small paper napkin. All of which will go into landfill. The bus is virtually full, so that's around 50 people producing this amount of rubbish each. I'm guessing lunch will be a plastic wrapped sandwich (ham and cheese!), probably on a plastic tray, and there will be more polystyrene cups, coffee bags etc.

For my part, I do what I can so for example, as well as the use of my own reusuable bag, I have my own water bottle with me, where I get bags unexpectedly e.g. when I collect my laundry (they rarely return it in the bag that I gave it to them in), I reuse these every opportunity I can, I only buy a bottle of pop/water when I have drunk all my own and if I'm thirsty and not able to refill it again imminently, I've stopped having takeout coffee and always sit in to drink it. But one thing that you cannot escape here are straws, they are everywhere and I think on only two occasions where I've ordered water have they not given me a straw in my glass. I've even had them in hot drinks. I mean, seriously?! One thing I have done whilst I'm away is buy a bracelet from 4 Ocean (https://4ocean.com/pages/our-story). For each bracelet purchased, one pound of plastic is removed from the ocean. I've also purchased a resusable coffee cup from Keep Cup (https://uk.keepcup.com/?country=United%20Kingdom# for people in the UK, the website should redirect for others) so that I don't need to have a paper cup for my takeout coffee when I return to the UK. I've also bought some stainless steel straws which come with a brush to clean them and am currently researching things such as the Eco-egg for my washing which will not only reduce my plastic use, it will also massively reduce my detergent use to help protect our water systems and long-term work out much cheaper than buying detergent. 

Litter

The final thing is litter. You do meet people who find it sad about how much litter there is here but I think mostly they don't see it. When you travel on buses, your bags get security tickets similar to on airlines and I have yet to see a luggage handler dispose of the plastic backing from the adhesive section in a bin. They just separate them then throw that part on the floor. Now multiply that up by every person, travelling on all the hundreds of buses here. The mind boggles. But it's not just that, cigarette ends, the plastic bags, bottles, boxes, snack packets and every kind of item you can imagine litters the streets, sides of roads, fields, waterways etc. There is little I can do about litter here, other than not do it myself! However, I'm incredibly fortunate that I have had my request for compressed hours at work approved for when I return so I will be working a 9 day fortnight. My aim is that on that day I'll be able to take part in volunteering and have more time for my hobbies and interests and environmental volunteering projects feature highly on my list of those I'd like to undertake, including community gardens, litter picks and working on London's canals. Maybe in this way, whilst I can't do much in South America, I can have an impact in the UK on my return.

As Emmanuel Macron put it: There is no planet B. We have to look after this one. I've been fortunate to be able to see a fairly decent chuck of it and I know how wonderful and precious it is and how I want to do as much as I can to protect it, and yes I do ge the. Irony that in seeing it I have played my part in hurting it. However, I know there's much more I will do when I return, and where I can limit my impact here further I will.