One cosy December evening found us in Atlanta. We had packed our house in Bangalore, bundled up a few belongings and lots of memories, said goodbye to our friends and family and boarded the flight to Frankfurt and then to Atlanta. The haul from Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International airport to our hotel in Buckhead gave us a taste of our first surprise.
1.Traffic - If horrible traffic was one of the reasons I moved from Bengaluru, I surely was in for a nasty surprise. Atlanta is notorious for its traffic jams. You can be stuck in crawling traffic for ages. The silver lining : Those Whitefield and Silk Board traffic jokes can be recycled and reused here, with a local tadka:)
2. Use of Disposables - Turning up for breakfast in the hotel the first morning, I was in for another unpleasant surprise. Breakfast was served in disposables. Each piece of cutlery was packed in plastic. At first I wondered if the use of disposables was because of the ongoing renovation at the hotel. But my husband, who had been in the same hotel at other occasions, told me this was the norm.
I shuddered at the waste created by the end of one breakfast. Mr. President, along with Paris and Copenhagen talks, why not start with a few simple things like making it mandatory to use reusables for meals at hotels? A lot of energy would be saved from production, transportation and recycling.
3. Garbage segregation - The concept is not very popular here. I have stayed in a couple of hotels and been to a few friends' places and haven't seen separate bins for garbage. One big bin with all your trash, that's how the waste is collected. It's quite disheartening to see that. Time to start a green team here, I guess!
4. School pick-up time - 6:45 am. Are they kidding the kids? To add to this, the younger the kid, the earlier she has to leave for school. The older kids go later! The school transport, is however, free which is so convenient.
5. Chilled drinks - No matter how cold it is, no matter if it's snowing, If it's a drink you want, it will be served chilled, if not with ice. With drinks, I mean water, juice, soft drinks and even milk.
Welcome to the land of abundance! Hope it becomes a land of responsible consumerism too.
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