24 Aug The Real Cost

Plastic Bottles on the road to Everest

It is rare that we ever pay the full cost of a product.

The reality of this fact came to me as I was walking through the SolumKumba in Nepal last month and bought water in a plastic bottle of water. Sure, the water was more expensive in the village – almost 4 times more expensive as down in Kathmandu – but that was understandable given the transportation costs of getting the water to me. It had come by car or air and then donkey train to the tea house before I bought it. Even at this higher rate – it was still way too cheap.

So why would I consider it underpriced? The price clearly didn’t factor in the cost of removing the plastic trash from the mountain.

As you walk along the path in the foothills of Everest, it is common to plastic bottles on the path. In this area of Nepal, where most transport is by mule, trash disposal is a challenge. When I bought my water, I wasn’t paying for the trash removal in the cost of my water. If it was to be cleaned up someone else was paying for it – or no one else was paying for it and it wasn’t happening. Either way – it was costing the people of the village – to remove it or to live with the mess it created. And as a visitor – even if I disposed of the plastic bottle in a trash can – I was leaving them with a problem.

As a consumer of plastic, I should probably have responsibility for the cost of the disposal of the plastic.

While the problem is obvious in the villages of Nepal – it is true everywhere. And as travelers and visitors it is important to remember that often we are leaving our hosts