Thailand

 
In my hopelessly naive and sustainability-obsessed point of view I thought that a culture centered on Buddhism would be very environmentally conscious. In reality Thai society has priorities other than being eco-friendly. My original hypothesis was based on this concept: Buddhists believe that after death your experience is determined by the merit you accumulated during your life. If you observed the Buddhist precepts and have good merit you have a favorable rebirth. If you were disrespectful and harmful, you go to hell and suffer for eons before being reborn into an unfortunate circumstance. The precepts are pretty straight forward, don’t kill, don’t cause suffering, don’t drink alcohol, don’t gamble, pay respects to monks, your parents, Buddha, if you have a chance to do good-take it, etc. For me the jump from here to environmentalism was obvious. Destroying air quality, the water table, and every bit of wilderness is a harmful thing that causes the death of species and ecosystems. This causes suffering for both people and animals. It seems like Buddhists would have merit-based motivation for wanting to be eco-friendly. (That’s the short version!)
 
So why are there plastic bags all over the ground? Why is the sky brown around the edges? Why is it acceptable for Thais to dispose of trash by tossing it out the window?
I have seen Green Bangkok stickers and “Just say no to plastic bags” cloth bags around town. And I have read that many of the companies in Thailand are looking into making efforts to be more sustainable. Many of the Hill Tribes are also fighting for their rights to keep their land and land management practises. Eco and beach tourism has provided some motivation to keep certain areas clean. But outside of the areas with lots of money the streets are filthy. As my good friend Yogi put it, “I wish I could say that Thailand is a beautiful lush tropical paradise…but it’s not. It’s covered in trash and it smells bad.” Yogi would go on to modify this statement by explaining that not all of Thailand smells bad and not all of it is dirty. But most people will never make it far enough away from the roads to see the parts that don’t reflect it’s enormous population.
 
I don’t know what it would take for people to feel a personnel responsibility to the environment. I thought I had it figured out. I thought that they just needed to breathe deeply and reflect on the interconnectedness of every living thing and then engage a mindfulness of their present moment in their daily actions. Then they would naturally see that being eco-friendly is the only option if we want to sustain life. But this was naive because to make that kind of jump ignores the hopelessness felt by people who feel they can’t make a difference and by people living in poverty. (There are a few other holes in this theory but here’s the one I can explain in less than 30 pages.)
 
Everyday I run past construction workers who live in temporary metal shacks. They all live together; all of the kids, mangy dogs and mosquitoes. I don’t want to make them sound pathetic. I don’t know what their lives are like and I don’t want to apply western standards to their situation. But here is what I see: they work outside in balmy hot weather to build condos and buildings for the university, they sleep in shacks made of thin sheets of metal, and every morning they see a bunch of foreigners run by. It makes me wonder why I am in a situation were I have so much extra food and time that I can spend energy running while these people are in a completely different situation. Are they bitter? Or do they chalk it up to merit? Either way perhaps being eco-friendly is a luxury that they can not yet afford. They are worried about where they will sleep and what they eat, not where their kids toss their empty juice boxes.
So what am I doing about it? This weekend I rounded up the USAC crew for three consecutive evenings of picking up trash. We removed about 85 standard garage bags from the Rangsit area. Most of our work was near the elementary school. We got reactions from the Thais. The first day two ladies who lived nearby helped us for a couple hours. Other people just stopped to ask us what we were doing and then why. Some people took pictures of us. Some people just laughed and shouted as they whizzed by on motor scooters. On the second day two of my Thai friends joined us and we explained to them that we were picking up trash because it makes the place more beautiful and because it is better for the environment. They wanted to know if people pick up trash like this in the US and we explained that yes sometimes people do, but we also make an effort to get our trash into garage cans so that we don’t have to.
 
I have 40 more trash bags and a packages of gloves waiting for me at my apartment. I would love to incorporate the elementary students into the next trash pick-up session. Hopefully Thais who see foreigners making an effort to take care of their beautiful country will take it as a positive cue that their home is worth investing some time and effort into. Already we’ve had some very positive responses from the people who have noticed that the areas are clean and the people who saw us working!
 
Here’s hoping.