What Africa Can Teach Us About Being Environmentally Friendly

When I was six years old, my family moved to Africa. I spent most of my childhood—or the part of it that I can remember—in the West African country of Senegal. Inspired by the Blog Action Day, last weekend I realized that there are a great deal of things that we can learn from the ways how things are done there.

In many ways the economical well-being we have in Europe, USA and other highly developed parts of the world has brought us far from many ways of saving and being more ecological that are still well understood in places like Senegal. Things that were natural to our grandparents, like buying food in bigger quantities, or reusing old materials instead of just throwing them to trash.

Here are some ideas that used to work well in Senegal when I was a kid.

1. Bring your own packaging

I don’t know how things are in Senegal today: it’s been more than 12 years since I moved back to Finland. But back in the days when I lived there, most of the groceries were done in small boutiques you could find at almost every street corner.

When you wanted to buy some oil, you brought your own bottle to the shop and the shopkeeper poured the oil to your bottle from a big barrel. When you needed eggs, you told them how many you wanted and put them in your own bag or basket.

In our stores everything is pre-packaged: You take a bottle of oil, and when it’s empty you throw it to trash and go get a new one. When you buy fruit, you bag them all to separate plastic bags. But what Senegal proves us is that that’s not the only way things can work.

2. Fresh bread every morning

As the oldest of four boys, my responsibility in the family was to buy the daily bread every morning from the bread kiosk down the road. When the girl behind the counter handed me the baguette it was usually still warm, and as the bread was eaten almost right after buying it there was no need for bagging it. A small piece of newspaper around the bread was just enough. What a great way to reuse paper!

3. A horse ride through town

A common way to move around the city of Mbour is by taking a horse taxi. The price is affordable and the ride is an experience, something that you can’t get for example in Finland, or anywhere in the world where busy is the dominant word.

And the best part of it? It’s natural. A taxi like this doesn’t produce any of the pollution of a regular cab.

4. Everything can be reused

When thinking of ways to reuse used materials only your imagination is the limit. Old soda or beer cans for example make great brief cases. Recycling cans is great, but if you can make something new out of them by yourself, like the man in the photograph is doing, you can probably make some money in addition to being green!

The photos, except the bread buying one, were taken by my parents. Thanks for sending them over, mom. The bread buying photo is taken by ho visto nina volare and licenced under the creative commons licence.