Bags
I live in Rwanda now, but I used to live in Vietnam. Of course, Rwanda and Vietnam are totally different. But what perhaps strikes me most, are the plastic bags. Or rather, the absence of bags. In recent years, many countries have taken all kinds of measures to ban single-use bags, just to reduce plastics and promote more sustainable bags. I remember how in South Africa, the bags at the checkout were made sturdier and paid for in order to reduce the amount of plastic in the litter. But even now, you see the "flowers of Africa" everywhere: bags hanging in the barbed wire of fences, flapping in the wind. In Belgium, too, people are trying to reduce the amount of plastic. The fruit and vegetable departments of supermarkets have switched from the thin bags to reusable, cloth or paper bags. But still, when visiting Belgium, it strikes me how much plastic is still in circulation, how many fruit and vegetables are pre-packed in plastic. That is less the case in Vietnam. Fruit