A Hard but Important Lesson by Rebecca Davis

Throughout my travels in Ecuador, I was able to see so many different communities. My academic experience was the furthest thing from classes on campus because I was able to immerse myself in the culture and learn firsthand rather than via PowerPoint or textbook. It was absolutely incredible to witness the ways that people maintain sustainability despite not having as many resources as people in the United States do. This eye-opening experience has taught me that if people in such small communities can find ways to work together in order to prevent more deforestation and promote sustainability, then I can easily find ways of protecting the environments that need protection. For example, I learned about how over half a million acres of forests have been cut down in Ecuador in order to create plantations for palm oil, which is seen in so many daily items, including makeup products. A lot of products that contain palm oil have the name disguised under others such as vegetable fat or vegetable oil, so every time someone eats a bag of chips or a scoop of ice cream, they are contributing to this deforestation. I was also able to visit a man’s home that was affected by the many oil spills in Ecuador, which left pools of crude oil in his backyard and prevented healthy plants from growing in the soil. There was also quite a lot of trash on the ground, mostly because of people not being educated properly on how plastic doesn’t decompose like a banana peel would. Seeing how the environment has been damaged and how people are trying to bring it back to its former glory demonstrated to me how important it is to take care of our planet now because it is so much harder to bring it back to life after it has been damaged. Some things that I tried on this trip that I will continue using in my everyday life include occasionally hanging up clothes to dry instead of using a dryer and using plastic-free and sustainable products, such as reusable water bottles, bamboo toothbrushes, and shampoo and conditioner bars.

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