A GreenDay in Taipei

How to spend the weekend in a cozy, breezy autumn afternoon? Strolling at the high street for your seasonal collection? Or lying on your comfy bed with the favorite series streaming all day? How about a day that lets you relax on the tender grass with an unplugged music show, exchange old memories for valuable treasure, and make your own zero-toxic wraps that save you from countless plastic waste? Most incredibly, all these activities are powered 100% by green energy!

A Greener day with Greenpeace

To start our journey, an astonishing number should be borne in mind: 18,000,000,000. That is the number of plastic bags being used in Taiwan annually. [1] So to speak, 782 plastic bags per person on average. It sounds ridiculous, but think about in which people put their food at night markets, and how they carry their groceries back home from supermarkets. The truth becomes obvious, and that is also why beeswax wraps are so advocated with its durability and usability recently.

Here are the reasons:

• The wrap is made with natural beeswax, which permits a direct contact with food.
• Naturally antibacterial, also pliable in different shapes for various purposes.
• Totally reusable, with simple detergent and cold water, it’s clean again and ready for another use. 

What is better is that we could totally renew it by ourselves at home, only required beeswax and a hot pan­­-- definitely a greener alternative to the disposable plastic bags.

More critical than the DIY is to get informed

Yes! We did it ourselves

As visitors entered the interactive sector, a container-transformed shelter bedecked with photos of amazing creatures, they put on the VR glasses, ready for a thrilling adventure deep into the Amazon and the Pacific Ocean. On the other side, instructors from Greenpeace were disclosing the resentment from nature as they pointed the captures on the walls: oil wells around the Arctic, deforestation in Indonesia, and the plastic continent at the Pacific Ocean, causing countless animals to lose their habitats and become endangered. The truth is, the natural wonders that we’ve just experienced through the VR glasses may only be preserved in photos and footages, and have no chance to be appreciated by our next generation.

Countless precious creatures worth our respect 

The human exploitation of natural resources 

Monologue from our nature

After the fascinating tour at the shelter, don’t forget to pick up your free vegan ice cream at the stand before heading to Green market. “One's Trash, Another's Treasure” following this idiom, people are asked to bring out stuff that has been stacked in their house and exchange it for something valuable: books, hats, accessories, utensils, etc. The crucial message is, even though we live in a world that encourages consumption, the life of these daily objects could be prolonged. Old goods do not equal to inferior quality, and necessity should always come into our mind before we take off the merchandise from the racks.   

Everything is charged by 100% green energy

Searching for the next baby

Before the day ends, why not sit together and be guided by the ocean guardians in the documentary ”BLUE” [2] to see the ecological catastrophe which is taking place in our oceans. Irrefutably, our oceans have been turned into an enormous dump by human beings. Watching seals trapped by the gill nets, plastic being flushed from the stomach of seagulls, and sea turtles chocked with plastic straws, this documentary is not made to demonize us, is to advocate the real actions: Before we buy, use, eat in our daily life, think about its impact on our planet and other creatures before making those decisions.

Every small change counts and nature will always embrace us with her warmest arms. That is what GreenDay all about.

Stay informed. Make a difference

By Chris Chang & Green News Taiwan