Where do you live? Are you back, back?

For the past 18 months i’ve spent most of my time in Southeast Asia, primarily Thailand and Cambodia.

Now, I’m based out of Sydney once more. Plastic Free SEA will continue to work with businesses in Australia and Southeast Asia.

Want to know how I got here? Read on. (Got what you needed from the intro? Thanks for stopping by).

It’s a funny story actually… and somewhat a full circle. Back in 2015 when I started PFSEA, I was living in Siem Reap, Cambodia. The magic of the energy and community there gave me the space to explore my desire, my call to do something bigger and more impactful. I felt compelled to do something that added more than it subtracted from our environment in the tourism sector.

In the 9 years that have passed, I realised that it was more than just the environment that I cared about protecting, it was the impact of tourism on local communities as well. You see, living in Cambodia gave me an entirely new perspective on the meaning of community and I’ll forever be grateful for the kindness, generosity and ‘we’ approach to most things that my people in Cambodia taught me.

I’m one of the lucky ones. Most travellers to Cambodia stay a mere 3 days. They leave behind more of their behaviours on the local communities and don’t stay long enough to benefit from the amazing gift that travel can be. (Check out The Last Tourist Film to dive deeper into this, in many ways I feel like this film is a doco of the past ~10 years of my life!).

But in 2018/19 I began to realise that my time in Cambodia was coming to an end, I took a break and went to the UK and Italy to consider my next steps. And I pictured myself in Sydney. The walking tracks, the oceans, the harbour….walking out the front door and being immersed in nature. That’s the future I could see. (And not as cold as my hometown of Adelaide in winter!!)

It was horrendous, or perhaps fantastic, timing. No sooner had I moved into an apartment by myself, in a suburb not very close to the couple of people I knew at the time, than Covid came along. I won’t dwell on that time, that’s for another story. But when we were able to travel again, I felt that I needed to revisit Southeast Asia. Had I made a mistake moving to Australia? Could I spend winter (or longer) in Southeast Asia each year? How will that affect my business?

Over that time I had many conversations – “the best of both worlds!” was a common theme.

But it wasn’t. No sooner had I found my people, my place in the world, and I was moving again. I knew people all over the region, but I’d lost my sense of community.

During the 8 months I spent in Cambodia last year… Finding it hard to connect with the community I’d gone back to, I realised that moving back and forth wasn’t sustainable. I’m so grateful for all the beautiful people in my life, here in Sydney who’ve welcomed me back and over in Cambodia who I’m missing tremendously. But the full circle realisation was… i wanted a home, a community, more stability in my world.

The country and people in my beloved Siem Reap, who helped me create PFSEA, wouldn’t be the place and people to get me to the next level I want to achieve.

It’s an incredible thing moving countries, the perspective is astounding, both illuminating and challenging. I’ve frequently been frustrated when Aussie tourists complain about plastic pollution in Southeast Asia and thank me for what I do, but I (equally frequently) point out that Australia is actually around 4 times worse (that’s conservative) but we hide our rubbish so much better here (not something to be proud of!).

Coming back to Sydney I notice things people who don’t leave (ie most normal people!) don’t, because incremental change is hard to see. Like why are there suddenly tobacco shops everywhere???

I digress.

People are often confused. Where do you live? How long are you back for? I understand, it hasn’t been clear to me either, and it’s felt scary to declare that I live in one place now. I don’t want my clients in Southeast Asia to feel like I’m abandoning them (I’m not!!) and it’s not that I’m not going back to visit and work (I am!!) but I live here now, here in Sydney, this is home.

With my expertise in sustainability in the Southeast Asia region, I will take consulting contracts in Southeast Asia (especially during the winter months ha ha).

And with my expertise in sustainability in Australia, I will become more involved, more established and I’m grateful to my incredible clients here and can’t wait to help more businesses in Sydney get their sustainability strategy sorted out and implemented.

It’s been an adventure, I frequently uncomfortable one, but a very worthwhile one. So whilst I rebuild my community here in Sydney, it’s important to note that community is a HUGE part of sustainability. We cannot have sustainable lives or businesses without it.

Keep in touch, if you’re in Sydney let’s meet up