Today I spent the day travelling by car, bus, foot and plane to the Green
Business Conference in San
Francisco. This is a congregation of other
folks running what have come to be known as 'green businesses' –
businesses with an environmental-social focus. And San Francisco
is certainly a natural place to meet, being one of the hearts of the
green movement, and to boot, at the forefront of key
plastic-reduction victories: phthalate reduction, plastic bag ban...
I thought I'd share some of my thoughts and experiences over these
next few days. So these posts may not necessarily be
plastic-related. But that's fine with me. I've always considered
blogs as streams of consciousness. And even though we are on a
mission here at Life Without Plastic, that doesn't mean we can't go
on tangents. How narrow life would be without tangents. At 6
am, Chantal and Jyoti drove me to the bus station in Ottawa. I took
a Greyhound to Montreal. Uneventful: sleep. I had breakfast in
Montreal around the corner from the bus station while waiting for the
bus to Burlington, Vermont. In one of the local events weeklies,
Voir, there was an article about the recent launch of the new beer
Rickards Dark. It happened at a trendy Montreal bar where they kept
the lights off and served the guests up the new Dark and hors
d'oeuvres in the dark so they couldn't really see what they were
eating or drinking. The symbolism of this really struck me as
Montreal is going through dark times. Mired in controversy over deep
roots of corruption that heroic journalists have uncovered in the
municipal government and throughout the construction industry.
Walking to the bus station, the sky was grey and the day felt dark,
but I was happy. Surely I would find light in San Fran.
Crossing
the border left many of us on the bus with a sour taste as we
entered the US. I was sitting directly behind a large, well-dressed
black man. He hummed softly to himself for the whole trip. At the
border crossing going from Quebec, Canada to Vermont in the US, we
all filed off the bus into the border post. The man in front of me
went first. The border guard looked at the computer screen after
scanning his passport and asked him, speaking quickly, “Where do
you live?” The man clearly didn't understand and didn't say
anything. The border guard looked up at him. “Where do you live?!”
The man tried to say something but I couldn't hear what. The guard
practically screamed, “ Come on we speak English here! How are we
supposed to understand you! WHERE DO YOU LIVE?” The man began to
say something, but the guard stopped him and ushered him into a
backroom. The rest of us got through fine, though obviously there
was heavy tension. The man joined us on the bus a while later. He
looked a little pale and immediately upon sitting down took a long
swig from his water bottle. It took several minutes before his
humming started up again. I asked him, in French (obviously his
English was not great), if they were as rude in the back as the first
guard had been to him. He said, “No worse than any other time.
It's always the same here. I'm just going to visit my sister in
Boston. But on the way back I'm taking the plane.” It's sad to
know that racial profiling still happens, and disturbing to see it in
action.
I
like Burlington, Vermont. I've driven through before, but never
stopped. I walked from the bus station downtown and people were
super friendly with directions on where to catch a city bus to the
airport. It has an earthy, laid back feel. The glossy Vermont
tourist magazine I thumbed through at the airport while eating a
veggie and hummus sandwich from the Great Harvest Bread Co. (beautifully
wrapped in simple kraft paper, I might add – no plastic!) described
the local fall traditions of apple-picking, cider making. You get
the feeling people live pretty close to the earth and seasons here.
I had
a quick stopover at Detroit airport. To go from Terminal C to
Terminal A you go through this neat long underground tunnel in which
the walls are lined with glass, and coloured lights behind the glass
change and flow in sync with airy, electronic, bubbly music. Rather
psychedelic and Austin Powersish. My other experience worth
mentioning at the airport happened in the mens bathroom. They have
these uber-cool Dyson hand dryers that use very little energy, are
completely hygenic and obviously decrease paper towel use. They were
created by James Dyson, the British inventor behind the revolutionary
Dyson vacuums, and the only other place I've seen them is in London.
You put your hands in the top, as though you were putting them into a
bucket, to start the air flow and as you move your hands up and down,
air shoots at them from both sides very forcefully. It feels like a
wonderful hand massage because you can feel the air going around each
finger. I had an absolute blast stimulating those hand pressure
points. But I was baffled. No one else was using them. In the time
that I was there, five other guys must have come through and every
one took a paper towel from the dispenser and didn't even look at the
Dyson dryers. Maybe I scared them off by having so much fun myself. Old habits die hard.
Now I'm in San Francisco at the historic utterly elegant turn-of-the-century Hotel Whitcomb where the conference is happening. It served as San Fran's City Hall between 1912-1915, while reconstruction was happening following the 1906 earthquake. It's dark outside and it's time to sleep. Tomorrow, in the light, I'll be exploring the city a bit. The conference really gets going on the 11th, and my plan is to post a few nuggets of gleaned wisdom from the sessions each day. There's always more to learn, and I hope to be able to share some of what I learn at the GBC with you.
Jay Sinha, Co-Owner
LifeWithoutPlastic.com
