Environmentally friendly?, by Devon Sarazin

According to The Telegraph, a major news source of England, Spain is the 6th most environmentally friendly country in the world. Spain is consistently ranks in the top 20 most eco-friendly countries in the world across a variety of other news sources such as Real Leaders and Environmental Performance Index; Spain is constantly ranking higher than the United States. I found this profoundly interesting, as one of my first observations in Spain was the amount of plastic being used. One example was water bottles; In the United States people tend to use reusable water bottles when out and about. Comparatively, when out and about most Spaniards seem to buy a plastic water bottle. Additionally, in the United States, when ordering water at a restaurant, bubbly or flat, it comes in a glass. Here in Spain you are often brought a plastic bottle at a restaurant. Another observation of plastic usage in Spain is the ice bags. When moving into our apartment, the program director asked if my roommates and I used ice. We answered yes and he recommended self-sealing ice cube bags. We actually ended up buying them by accident, meaning to buy Ziploc baggies. These bags are not reusable as you have to rip the plastic to get the cubes out. In the United States when making Ice cubes, people use reusable ice trays. These observations as well as a few others lead me to believe that Spain was wasteful. When I did some research, I was surprised to find just the opposite. According to Plastic Pollution, an article written in Our World Data, The United States uses significantly more plastic per capita than Spain. Spain is more environmentally friendly in ways other than just plastic consumption. There are less CO2 emissions because people walk, bike or scooter instead of driving cars. Also, people are more conservation with electricity and water than in the United States. It is interesting to see how emphasized environmentalism is in the United States, yet Spain, where at first glance environmentalism seems like less of a priority, can be making environmental strides in different and more effective ways.

Bibliography 

DeAngelis, Mark T. “2018 EPI Results.” 2018 EPI Results | Environmental Performance Index, 2018, epi.envirocenter.yale.edu/epi-topline?country&order=field_epi_rank_new&sort=asc.

Ritchie, Hannah, and Max Roser. “Plastic Pollution.” Our World in Data, 1 Sept. 2018, ourworldindata.org/plastic-pollution.

Smith, Oliver. “Mapped: The World's Most Eco-Friendly Countries – Where Does the UK Rank?” The Telegraph, Telegraph Media Group, 22 Apr. 2017, www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/maps-and-graphics/most-and-least-environmentally-friendly-countries/.

“Which Countries Are The Most Environmentally-Friendly?” Real Leaders, 14 Aug. 2018, real-leaders.com/which-countries-are-the-most-environmentally-friendly/.