Being Environmentally Friendly

I have been in Australia for a little over a week now and a number of cultural differences have stuck out to me. One of the more present differences that I have become particularly aware of during my time here is the heightened importance of being environmentally friendly. There are many signs, such as the one in the image, and options provided in public areas to promote and enforce a greener city and lifestyle. The initial thing that drew my attention was the multitude of detailed signs reminding people to not be wasteful and giving clear instructions on where to appropriately place trash. After noticing these things, the more subtle aspects of Australia’s environmentally forward actions began to stick out to me as well. Compared to the D.C area and other large cities in the United States, the streets of Sydney are overall a lot cleaner. There is not a significant amount of trash on the ground and even the homeless people do not seem so dirty, due to the cleaner streets and environment that they must live in. This, in part, is due to the fact that restaurants do not generally give out more paper products than necessary. Even the fast food restaurants that I have eaten at do not have a separate station where customers can take their own napkins, utensils, and sauces. For instance, the McDonald’s here only allows one free sauce with meals and any extra items must be requested at the counter. Although I was slightly annoyed, I realized what I actually needed in order to enjoy my meal. People here are used to only being given what they need, whereas Americans always take extra simply because it is convenient. When places do provide this free selection, more than needed is often taken, wasting the products and also generating more litter on the public streets.

Some other environmentally friendly actions taken by businesses include the use of hand dryers and toilets with multiple flushing options. I have not yet been in a restroom in Australia that provides paper towels for drying hands. Instead, they all have high-powered hand dryers. Without even the option of using paper towels, people must use the dryers, which significantly reduces the paper waste product that the paper towels would create. In the United States, many public restrooms have hand dryers, however also have paper towels available. This option may reduce the waste slightly, but still results in a significant amount due to the fact that paper towels are a quicker option so people tend to prefer using them to the dryers. Additionally, people commonly take more towels than needed to dry their hands. All of the toilets in Australia also have two flushing options, where one of them uses less water if it is not needed. This is a feature that I have just started to notice in a few American restrooms, however it is not nearly as common as I have found it to be here. Being such a dry country, this simple adjustment saves tons of water on a daily basis.

In addition to the public installments, Australians individually appear to have a greener lifestyle. I have barely seen any locals using plastic water bottles or plastic bags. Reusable products are normal things that they carry with them. I have even seen a few vending machines for plastic bottles, indicating the popularity and normality of using them. Many of the grocery stores also do not provide plastic bags, which encourages shoppers to bring their own reusable ones.

After spending some time here and becoming especially aware of Australia’s general view on the environment, it is apparent that being environmentally friendly has been built into their culture a lot more than it is in the United States. There is a much larger presence of instruction and reminders as well as simple green advancements and policies. Cities in the United States are behind on some of these environmental implementations, but a larger part of the difference is due to the attitude and culture of the places and the people. Americans, in particular, highly value convenience, and therefore do not put as much thought and effort into how their actions may impact the environment. Some of these same strategies used here may also not be as effective in the United States because of this value. Many of the differences that I have noticed in Sydney reduce the speediness and convenience, which does not appear to be as big of a concern to locals as it is to Americans.

Marissa Post