The following are five postcards, which I have written on the day I leave and are addressed to myself across the 17 days of my Barcelona summer school placement.
Postcard One – Dear Future Me,
You have just arrived. Seventeen days is short enough to tell yourself that none of It matters a footprint this brief isn’t worth pondering. However, this logic should be refuted. Short trips, multiplied by thousands of students like you, who take them each year, are not small.
Today, I have bought a metro pass instead of defaulting to taxis. Fortunately, it seems that Barcelona has an extensive metro network. We had our welcome ceremony at the auditorium, we were given a UAB branded refillable bottle, no need for a case of plastic ones. The tap water is drinkable; there is no excuse.
Postcard Two – Dear Future Me,
The temptation to eat like a tourist is real; fast, packaged, wherever is closest. Instead, I shall be finding a stall at the local flea market. Buying Catalan produce instead of imported, plastic wrapped equivalents is a small act towards SDG 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production). https://globalgoals.org/goals/12-responsible-consumption-and-production/
This week I’m spending one evening at Barceloneta, not swimming but picking up plastic along the shoreline. The Mediterranean is one of the most overfished, plastic-filled seas in with world. I will not be looking away for seventeen days, that’s fulfilling SDG 14 (Life Below Water). https://globalgoals.org/goals/14-life-below-water/
Postcard Three – Dear Future Me,
Halfway through. Has it become natural yet? The metro instead of a taxi app. A cloth bag at the market. Choosing to use a paper straw over a plastic one.
I have been keeping a running tally on my phone; every day I go out without buying any single use plastic, I give myself a checkmark. It is indeed unglamorous, but it works, it’s accountability, sustainability on a short trip isn’t one grand gesture, its several small choices repeated. That’s SDG 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities). My footprint is shaped by how I move through this city. https://globalgoals.org/goals/11-sustainable-cities-and-communities/
Postcard Four – Dear Future Me,
Not many days left now. This is where I stop making rules only for myself. I have recently learnt about the app Too Good To Go, it lets the bakeries and cafes of Barcelona to sell any surplus of food, rather my belly than the bin.
Postcard Five – Dear Future Me,
Here is what I hope is true by the time you read this. You biked more than you taxied, you ate more from the market than from plastic packaging, you left Barceloneta’s beach better than you found it and you talked someone else into caring.
Barcelona did not need seventeen days for me to prove something. It required me to realize that a short placement can have both a negative and positive impact, with the aspiration of taking less than I give.
