The Price of Convenience
“What’s the worst that could happen?” ~ Staples Easy Button
These past years, I have been battling with the concept of convenience and its effect, directly or indirectly, on my surroundings. Many would agree that life today is easier and more comfortable than a few decades ago. With the advancement of technology, getting from point A to point B is a lot faster and we can pretty much purchase anything we want with a click of a button (or a tap, whichever platform you prefer).
- Looking to buy 1500 ladybugs to spice up your garden? Amazon to the rescue.
- Wanting to look cool? Why not get a fake mustache from Shopee.
- Feeling hungry in the middle of the night? GrabFood some local delicacies.
You have got to admit, life has become way more convenient. In the not so distant past, people in the Philippines had to wait for Lechero to get their fresh milk. Imagine yearning for a warm milk in the middle of the night and you had to wait till the morning to get it. Not fun! Nowadays, with the rise of quick commerce, we can even get groceries in 15 minutes without having to step out of the comfort of our bed.
Of course we could argue that our lives have become busier and convenience is essential to make sure we can perform our daily functions. Innovative products (digital and non digital) have offered us more time to focus on what’s important to us and optimize many aspects of our civilizations. For instance, innovative LDPE coated paper cartons or recyclable HDPE plastic container packaging are safer and have been proven effective to optimize the dairy industry supply chain.
But have you ever stopped and wondered, how much do we really pay for all these conveniences?
Volume.
The law of physics states that two objects cannot occupy the same space at the same time. All physical objects, as we know, are made of matter and have physical size. Waste is a physical object.
On average, we produce 0.74 kilogram of waste daily. And the global waste production rate is expected to surpass more than double the population growth to 3.40 billion tonnes by 2050!
All this waste needs to go somewhere. And in Indonesia, it usually would go to a landfill or open dumping.
TPST (Tempat Pengolahan Sampah Terpadu) Bantargebang is the largest landfill in Southeast Asia. It has a size of 117.5 hectares and 6,500 to 7,000 tonnes of waste is dumped here daily. The landfill was supposed to reach its volume limit in 2021, but the government has expanded the location by 7.5 hectares.
What does it take to expand the landfill by 7.5 hectares?
As we produce more waste, we also need to find a place to store and process them. 714 millions tonnes of waste is expected to be produced in East Asia & Pacific in 2050.
That number is… to put it lightly, terrifying.
“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.” ~Martin Luther King, Jr.
In finance, convenience cost is the extra price we are willing to pay to make our lives easier. We usually pay this cost without even realizing. For example, ordering dinner from instant delivery services, such as GoFood, GrabFood or Traveloka Eats vs cooking at home.
Working out the math isn’t difficult at all. We have to consider delivery fee, platform fee, restaurant surcharge fee and, in some cases, driver tips with instant delivery services. This begs the question, if there are other convenience costs that we have to consider.
Let’s take instant food delivery as an example. Participating restaurants would usually package our food in neat & “supposedly” secure plastic packaging, i.e. plastic cable ties (instant food delivery in Jakarta started putting plastic cable ties to “secure” plastic bags since the pandemic started). And in the spirit of convenience, we would receive plastic utensils so that, well, we can devour the foods without any hindrance.
In addition to the financial convenience cost above, we have actually just incurred a significant amount of sustainability convenience cost.
For most of us, waste is something that we’re not concerned with and easy to forget because they are usually out of our sight.
Let’s imagine for a moment: It’s Monday early in the morning and the sound of your owl alarm clock wakes you up precisely at 5:50 AM. Snooze or not to snooze, that is the question that you always battle every morning. This time though, you decide to get up and make it to the office early. It’s a brand new week anyways :)
You make your way to the bathroom to freshen up and notice that you only have just enough toothpaste. You squeeze (like all Asians) till its last drop and throw the toothpaste packaging into your bathroom trash can. Once you finish brushing your teeth, you see that your toothbrush needs to be changed. There goes the old toothbrush into the trash can.
This must not be your day! As you jump into the shower and clean up, you only manage to get one small pump of shampoo and body wash. OMG, you said to yourself as you’re finishing out of shower. Again, goes the shampoo and body wash plastic bottles into the trash can.
You move, you sway and make your way into the afternoon. You order food to keep you full and coffee to keep you awake. There goes the take out food packaging and coffee cup.
Here comes the evening and it’s Monday Madness at your favourite bar. You call your closest friends and decide to go for a drink or two. People say smoking is bad for your health, but you’re only a casual smoker. “It shouldn’t be that bad right”, as you think to yourself. And there goes the smoke buds.
From all of the situations above, not one time you have to worry where your waste is going. As long as you throw them into the trash can, they are all being taken care of. This is the understanding that most of us have. Throw them into the trash can and they are out of my sight.
Convenient, yes?
Jakarta Perda (local regulation) no. 3/2013 and Perda no. 8/2007 govern the act of waste disposal. A fine up to Rp 20.000.000 (~ USD 1,400) or 2 months imprisonment is imposed on people who did not practice proper disposal. From what I can remember, we’ve always been taught to dispose of waste properly. There are regulations that govern the habit with enforced (not so much) penalty as you can see above, but we have never been educated on the impact of waste production.
Late last year, I decided to do a waste audit with the goal to really understand my household waste production. We separated waste into 5 different categories: compost, plastic packaging, papers, glass & others. We kept track of the total weight and number of items.
In the 2 weeks we conducted a waste audit, our household of 2 people produced a total of 16.2kg of waste! Most of the household waste was coming from instant delivery food packaging. We also learnt that food packaging is made up of different types of plastics and not all plastics are created & treated equally.
In the zero waste pyramid hierarchy, reuse is preferred over recycling. Glass is a great example of reusable packaging, however we realized that we’ve been “collecting” too many. This is an eye opening exercise to learn how my household consumption is producing waste.
Waste source separation is a practice that I had never done before. Aside from not being the norm, source separation actually requires a little more effort before throwing out the waste. “Such a hassle!” I thought. This habit, however, helps me build a better understanding towards our household consumption pattern.
“You were not built for comfort and convenience. You were built to overcome.” ~Cory Booker
From the waste audit, we reflected and decided to change some of our consumption habits.
Some of the things we adopt:
- Request no plastic utensils when ordering food instant delivery
- Bring reusable fruits/vegetables packaging and bag when going to traditional market or supermarket
- Use refillable hand soap tablets
- Substitute paper towels with washable cloth
- Clean dishes with dried loofah instead of nylon dishwashing fiber
- Travel with reusable collapsible cutlery & chopsticks
- Bring water in a reusable bottle whenever we are out
- Buy fruits and foods in smaller quantities to avoid food waste
- Avoid buying processed foods
- Purchase tea and coffee in bulk instead of sachets tea bags & coffee pods
- Ask ourselves “do we really need it” a few times before buying new items
There are many other habits that will take time for us to adopt, and the goal is to embrace and follow through these new habits.
Indonesia has set an aggressive national target of 30% overall waste reduction, process 70% of waste waste so they don’t end up in a landfill and 70% ocean plastic reduction by 2025. Currently, less than 40% of waste is managed well in Indonesia. And the National Plastic Action Partnership reports that Indonesia generates around 6.8 million tonnes of plastic waste per year, a number that is growing by 5% annually.
Waste is a global problem, but it needs to be solved locally. Personal and community commitments, with municipality support, can spearhead ripple effect initiatives.
It is time to ask ourselves: how much do all these conveniences really cost us? How does my consumption behaviour affect those around us? What are some new behaviours I can adopt to slightly move the needle and promote sustainability, regardless of the additional little “inconvenient” efforts?
In Project Lima, we collaborate to find innovative solutions to some of the world’s most pressing issues. Guided by the commitment to create future-oriented solutions, we strive for positive impact.
If you are curious about zero waste initiatives, or just wanting to learn more about how to conduct a waste audit, or you are a sustainability expert, do drop us a message. Subscribe to our mailing list to get first access to new content and events.
After all, what’s the worst that could happen ;)
