How Balloons and Toilet Paper Teach Sustainable Living

Pop quiz time….what do Balloons and Toilet Paper have in common?

Ok, that was a toughy…lets try this -

What can Balloons and Toilet Paper teach us about sustainable living?

It started a few weeks back when we needed 2 balloons for a science experiment Grant was conducting for his homeschooing. We set out one afternoon on our scavenger hunt, trying to find a bag of balloons in Ecuador was certainly going to be a challenge, but eventually located a small shop that carried an odd assortment of rarely needed items.

They also carried balloons.

After a few minutes struggling with translations the owner retreated to the back of the shop and when he returned he carried with him a balloon. Great we said, that is exactly what we need, how much for the balloons?

How many do you want said the shopkeeper?

Well we only need 2 balloons for the experiment we thought to ourselves, but surely he must mean how many packages of balloons do we need.

A few more minutes of language translation and we were sure he wanted to know how many individual balloons do you want?

We asked for 2 balloons…but he negotiated very hard with us and convinced us to purchase 3 balloons. He laughed as he pulled out 3 balloons representing the colors of the Ecuadorian flag.

We are SO accustomed to purchasing larger quantities of products back in the states. As in this example, products we don’t really need or want.

In fact, when we were in the process of getting rid of our possessions in preparation for “our trip” I found a half dozen bags of balloons. Some were different colors…but I think some were purchased simply because we could not find where we put the last bag. Why someone needs 6 bags of balloons is beyond me…

So, last night I am standing in the doorway to a small shop where Gina and the kids are purchasing a few x-mas decorations. My Spanish must be getting better, because I realize the Gina is asking the shopkeeper for something that I don’t think has anything to do with x-mas. I poke my head in to see what they are talking about…and it appears to me that Gina is negotiating how many rolls of toilet paper she will purchase.

Now I love my wife and we are living on a fixed income, but negotiating for toilet paper?

Apparently the package contained 8 rolls and Gina only needed wanted 4 rolls. The shopkeeper kindly tore open the bag, gave us our 4 rolls and returned the other half to the store shelves.

In our home in the states we had a cabinet for paper products! That is right…an entire cabinet dedicated to paper towels, toilet paper, paper napkins, you name it and we had it in the paper cabinet!

Personally, I never worried about any type of natural disaster striking us…I was fairly confident that with our supply of paper products and balloons we would survive!

We are learning many lessons in simple living and sustainability during our time in Ecuador. It is much more a way of life to purchase only what you need here. I believe balloons and toilet paper can teach all of us something about our impact on this planet and remind us to look at our purchasing habits differently.

And before you ask…we did recycle the balloons for later use but did not recycle the toilet paper.