I arrived in Taiwan faded, sandy and one broken zip from retirement. Before hanging from a British exchange students shoulders, I had already spent years with his girlfriend. My stitching was frayed. Colour faded from black to dark grey, and my zip only worked after a stern conversation. Most people would’ve replaced me years ago. Instead, I was stuffed with clothes, excitement and enough uncertainty to fill a locker before beginning a semester in Taipei.
I expected to carry laptops, chargers and the occasional banana. I didn’t expect to become a temporary rubbish bin, a carrier of second-hand surf gear, or a commuter on Taipei’s MRT, witnessing how sustainability is built through combinations of small decisions.
It started with a peanut packet. Then a coffee cup, breakfast wrappers, and before I knew it, I had been promoted from backpack to temporary landfill. Unlike home, Taiwan has hardly any public bins, leaving empty coke cans mingling with lecture notes and phone chargers. Yet carrying rubbish for hours had an unexpected effect: every packaging piece became noticeable. The lesson was hard to miss in a country that “recycles >60% of its municipal waste”. The SDGs ‘responsible consumption and production’ was no longer an environmental slogan discussed in classrooms. It was the beginning of a simple habit of taking responsibility for what I carried.
Most days, I travelled far slower than the “14 million scooters” buzzing across Taiwan’s roads. Instead, i rattled through buses, swung from handlebars of YouBikes and wedged beneath MRT seats. Passing through Taipei City Hall became routine, as did checking the EasyCard carbon tracker. Between train platforms and cycle paths, SDG 13’s Climate Action stopped sounding like a global ambition and became an everyday habit, supported by a city designed to make better choices easier.
Journeys smelled of surf wax and salt-soaked boardies. Not only was I carrying litter, but also second-hand surf gear en route to the beach. But despite firing waves, the devastating appearance of residue from the “19 million tonnes of plastic that enter our oceans each year” scarred the beach. Now SDG’s ocean pollution wasnt just tangled in news headlines, but round feet in the lineup too. Surfers often carried litter above the high tide line, creating piles too visible for local clean-up crews to ignore. Or so I like to think.
Departure day was the first time in months I felt empty. No tiles collected for repurposing in art projects, bedding donated to a few of the 600 rough sleepers near taipei main station, art supplies shared among peers. Even the clothing rail found a second life as a wetsuit dryer. But still, I felt heavier. Not because of what remained inside me, but because of what Taiwan had packed there. The understanding that sustainability is rarely one grand gesture. It is collaboration, community and millions of small actions performed by ordinary people every day.
I arrived in Taiwan as an old backpack. I left carrying something new.
https://sdgs.un.org/goals
https://english.dep.gov.taipei/
https://www.easycard.com.tw/en/about
https://www.unep.org/plastic-pollution
https://www.ema.gov.tw/en/information-service/infographics/4084.html
https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/news/6098407
