Fresh Wind & Green Grass

Recently I got a new client that works for a new, sustainable protein source production. This, of course, not the first time I handled a commercial sustainable product, but this got me thinking: do we have an agreement on things that we do every day that we consider sustainable really sustainable? Is this new protein source not a scam or green-washing as many products are?

These are my very personal opinions on sustainable lifestyle - very unfavorable, you might think, but I want to initiate a discussion where we are very skeptical about our decision-making process. 

1. Have fewer children, marry when necessary
   
   Growing up, I am not a fan of marriage for having a lovey-dovey life. I am a crime documentary and drama fan, and I have a firm opinion that there's no such thing as true love. How will you answer the concept of true love when people remarry after being left by their loved ones or when they can marry more than one person? What exists is a true partnership, and it can be platonic or romantic, and it still has a similar importance. What I believe is marriage is a civil union, a bond that governs who can make important decisions at critical times (say, accident or critical surgery), to whom your wealth will be handled when you pass away, and with whom you will share your everyday matters, opinions, laughter, and cries. With this in mind, I didn't have any problem getting married a bit late compared to society's standard, but I know that not everyone is privileged with this.
   
   What I want to say is I found that postponing marriage is a very environmental-friendly decision. Did you know that women that marry at a more mature age will get better access to education, wealth, and healthy reproduction? That it will be related to psychological maturity in parenting? Women who marry at an older age will also have fewer children, so they have a chance to raise their children and have more money to provide better education for their kids. The human population, I think, is the epicenter of environmental problems. Every species on this earth needs food, habitat, and other resources to survive. As the most intelligent being on this planet, the growth of our population has been and is still predicted as a major cause of habitat loss and environmental degradation. By having fewer kids or at least just 1 child per family (or adoption) we will need fewer resources from water, food production, and land conversion for human settlement. All production will be smaller, and we can focus more on human advancement in science and technology rather than basic productions.
   
   I still believe that using a condom made of rubber will always be more sustainable than having an unwanted kid. Unwanted pregnancy has been a source of many mental problems (and mainly always on the mother, not the father) and economic turbulence in a family, and we need to stop this loophole. Up until today, my heart goes to organizations that work for planned parenthood and women's empowerment because that helps the environment a lot.
   
   
2. Diversify our food, eat whatever is available nearby
   
   
   I am a bit fed up whenever I am told that veganism is the solution to all environmental problems. The most important thing that I learned as I grew up is that there is never a single solution to all problems. Did you know that entomophagy is also a solution to save resources to produce protein? And what kind of silly opinion is that saying we can only consume things that don't feel pain when one study suggests that plants also experience pain? How will you tell a family living in poverty, on a remote island where a flight to there from Bali is even more expensive than to Jakarta though the island is closer to Bali, to stop eating lamb or cow in an area where water is scarce, and no vegetable will survive the climate? 
   
   The problem with our diet is production. I have a commodity client, so I am in touch with commodity production calculations on a daily basis. It's scary, but again it makes sense since we need to feed more and more people now. Throughout these years, working in wildlife institution research made me come to the conclusion that diversification is important for ecosystems. When something is dominant, the ecosystem will go unbalanced, and there will be something that falls. I have analyzed many data for my research that I compared with LULC (Land Use & Land Cover) data that shows how scary the land conversion for farming (vegetables!) is. Did you know that potato is the culprit behind Dieng's landslide? 
   
   We can't just ask everyone to eat a single type of food when land is needed for production. Diversification, which I see in religions that ask their followers to eat different food, is somewhat good (e.g. Buddha prefers veganism, Islam orders no pork, and Jews have kosher restrictions). I would say that eating everything (but not wildlife) that's available nearby is the best solution for time being. And if that's not even solving the problem, then we need to go back to my #1 point above.
   
   
3. Buy multipurpose cleaning product
   
   I have been privileged to live on my own since a long time ago, so I have full independence in choosing which products I can use for home cleaning. Being in Bali for 6 years now and having a hobby of cleaning dishes, I am fortunate in how easy it is to access environmentally-friendly products here, so I could make comparisons. My house has a circular water management system, meaning that every drop of water from my kitchen or bathroom will go back to my garden, and that's where I will get water for a drink (I use a water filter and no longer buy bottled water since 2018). I slowly realized how important it was to consider the chemical used in my cleaning products. I started to cross out SLS, paraben, phthalate, and palm oil from all my cleaning products. It's very convenient that now small shops have started to provide a versatile, multi-purpose cleaning product that can be used for the body, hand, dish, floor, and cloth. I can just add small drops of essential oil whenever I want to. I hope these shops are growing bigger and more people will be interested in trying them. We have taken water for granted from the very first-time river valley civilizations that started thousand years ago. It's time to stop.
   
   
4. Manage our own organic waste
   
   Waste management relies heavily on infrastructure, meaning that it's useless if you have divided your trash by type, but the garbage pickup service at your housing complex will mix them up anyway. I have witnessed so many failing waste management programs because there is no infrastructure provided at the end of the customer journey. A similar problem happens in my area; I don't know if my garbage man will divide the waste or not, but the least I can do is have one bio pore infiltration hole, and I always put the valuable yet reusable waste in one bag. I know if I put them in one bag, that will make the garbage man realize that he can sell it again somewhere to be recycled. The most crucial is the organic waste because when it mixes up with reusable waste, then everything maybe needs to go to the landfill. By eliminating this, then it will reduce the number of landfill waste at least.
   
   
5. Pet only domestic and stray animals - sterilize them
   
   Okay, now is a very debatable issue for pets. Studies show that it is only the human species that keep other species as pets. The reason is many, say loneliness and the need for control. But humans are so selfish that it selects the most breed they want on domesticated pets, especially just because it's "cute". I am never a fanatic about any animal, but I choose a cat to pet. He came to my house around 6 months after I moved here, and I found something peculiar on his genitals. I decided to pet and love him, but not other cats. Time went by, and he got a urinary problem and was brought to a vet, and the vet said that he had been castrated. I was just about to sterilize him and kept thinking, who had castrated him? Was it the government or a random vet or clinic that had a stray operation?
   
   At that time, I realized the importance of taking care of stray cats. I taught him to not catch birds or random geckos (and now he's lazy af, a homebody lair, but that's fine), and I support movements to sterilize stray cats and dogs. There was a huge debate on Twitter saying that sterilizing them is ripping away their reproduction rights, but what I know is that feral animals can be a serious problem. Let's take an example in Australia. Feral cats have gone wild and killed an estimated more than 1 million native birds and 1.7 million reptiles across Australia every day. The government made a difficult decision to eradicate them just to be hated by the public. Speaking of reproduction rights, I am a full supporter of planned marriage and pregnancy, so while I am donating to the sterilization campaign, I am also limiting my own self rights to reproduce. When you think about it, sometimes, these not-to-sterilize campaigns for domestic pets are just used by greedy breeders to gain optimum profit by saying that some breeds are expensive and exclusive - while what I can see in all cats is... a cat.
   
   
6. Use a menstrual cup or reusable pad
   
   We can't debate someone's belief when they see a menstrual cup as a virginity destroyer, but there is always a safer choice: a reusable pad. As a woman, I've regretted how many single-use pads I had thrown away and ended up in a landfill. I've been using a menstrual cup, hand-in-hand with a reusable pad, for around two years now. It equals to 3,024 single-use pads (I used up to 4 a day in the first 3 days of my period). Some have criticized the rubber used in the cup or how much water is needed for washing reusable pads, but I see no other options at the moment. I once thought if I sterilized myself, I won't get any period, but that is wrong - so again, it's not a good option for now. It's up to you whether you see a menstrual cup as something against the cultural norm, but the hassle of washing reusable pads is not a reason to stop using single-use pads. I've seen so many personal care products, including diapers and menstrual pads on waterways in my research site, and don't you think it's one of the most disgusting things a human can do? 
   
   

   Baby diapers, just 3 meters away from a river

   
   
7. Clean up our cloud storage
   
   Did you know that Google now has a new regulation where it will reward any website that works fast (under 3 seconds) and lite? Data centers have used 1% of world energy to just run their server, and it's a bad situation for both the environment and their finances. That's why they will now reward good websites and punish bad websites by pushing them down in SERP (Search Engine Ranking Page). This is why I have a regular checkup on my cloud storage (I have so many emails that serve different purposes) and clean whatever that is already obsolete and unnecessary to keep. This looks silly, but as a person working in the digital industry, this is something that I can do for the environment. Using paper is so last year; our trash online is the new environmental waste.
   
   
8. Use electronic products as long as we can
   
   When I was a kid, my dad always taught me to buy electronics that could last for years. Later I found it's not only financially healthy but also environmentally friendly. At the moment, I still use a Toshiba laptop that my previous workplace bought for me in January 2014. I still use it for many data analysis processes until this year, almost all internet frameworks will stop supporting my OS. It still works well, and I even can still use it without any charger cable connected (and I haven't even replaced the battery). Toshiba has even closed its manufacture and support in Indonesia for laptop products, but my laptop is still running well.
   
   I fully understand that many producers now only build products that last up to two years, so consumers will keep buying, and they have cash flow. Nonetheless, electronic waste is worrying, and this is what keeps me to keep minimal when it comes to gadgets. I do regular clean up and check on my devices, making sure that they will run as long as possible until it's not possible again for them to run. I think, as a generation, we need to grow the spirit of maintenance and repair instead of replacement.