Leanda Lee
This year’s Macao International Environmental Co-operation Forum and Exhibition has come and gone. Water for speakers was poured from stainless- steel jugs into glasses (a pity about the paper covers) and nary a plastic carrier bag for brochures to be seen. Such elements seem inconsequential, but they are often overlooked, important symbols which can build or destroy credibility of such an event.
So used are we to industrialised systems of delivery that we consume indifferent to how it is brought to us and what is left behind. We expect instant gratification for thirst, individual taste preferences and convenience, with no preparation ourselves. Expectations and even a sense of entitlement drive our lifestyle patterns; we barely consider how our own behaviours influence the whole. In our defence, we largely trust that the economy which delivers convenience, sustenance and luxury is sustainable and will clean up after us – Hato was a real shock, wasn’t it? If it is not an efficient and renewable use of human, capital, energy, environmental and natural resources, we trust that it will organically evolve, or some government, scientist or technician somewhere will put everything right.
Sadly, the system does not work. It is not sustainable, and it is not being put right fast enough. How many of those MIECF speakers with the glasses of water were handed coffee in throw-away cups, little packages of dry-biscuits and a bottle of water in single-use packaging in VIP class on the ferry across? Our modes of consumption and usage are founded on expectation, entitlement, convenience and economic rationalism – note: slavery, too, is economically rational.
A word on the word sustainable. Its clarity is akin to Macau’s use of “scientific” and “diversification” – conveniently amorphous enough to sound significant without saying anything. Speakers at last year’s MIECF highlighted the need for conscious consumption as the lynchpin to building a sustainable community. Sustainability is about moving away from low-cost inputs and high energy consumption to a circular system whereby upon resources being transformed they are reused elsewhere and never wasted. My personal yardstick is if some part goes into landfill or pollutes, the production and consumption of the product or service is unsustainable.
The Venetian’s Organic Food Tasting event this year is a step towards conscious consumption. I was concerned, however, by their apologetic explanation about organic food as being ‘alternative’ and a ‘challenge’ due to unstable supply. The modern cook expects to dictate what shall go on the table rather than be dictated to by seasonality and locale. We demand abundance of choice through unsustainable practice and have lost touch with what is in season.
In our urban consumption of organic foods, we are downright selfish. There is this weird divide between the urban food forest and food security movement where the climate and proximity determine what we may have, and packaged produce distributed by the “organic” food industry: Organic food in plastic is oxymoronic.
Sustainable organic consumption sits hand in hand with sustainable organic production and distribution. There is little waste in organic production, the resources (mainly poop and other rotting organic matter) get ploughed back into the cycle of the land; the produce is sold close to source to consumers who seek nutritional content from seasonal produce, not aesthetic perfection.
Consumers who demand the perfect organic peach in Macau in December are wasteful, there is no alternative. Not being seasonal, it needs to be flown miles adding to the carbon footprint. Without volumes of pesticides and herbicides a percentage of an organic harvest will be nibbled at and procreated in (nature’s own organic certification).
If you are after organic food, it is not the plastic- lined almost-paper bag of organic freekeh on the supermarket shelf, but the bok choy down at your local wet market (and please remember to take your shopping bag).
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