A 34-year-old American is going around the world on a bicycle to promote protection of the environment. He has set himself three rules – no gas, no meat and no plastic – and calls his journey a three-rule ride.
Using a bicycle to drive home the environment aspect is not surprising but the point about meat is surprising. Michael Roy, who touched Visakhapatnam on Tuesday on his world tour, explained the three rules he is following and said he turned vegetarian after watching the way meat was processed and sold in the US and also because it means cruelty against animals. “It is not difficult to avoid eating meat if you really want to be a vegetarian”, Mr. Roy said.
He passed through many countries, after setting off from South Korea on August 14, 2012. “In most countries people were surprised when I told them that I don’t eat meat. But in India people have understood me and directed me to places serving vegetarian food.”
Plastic is more damaging than meat, he says. In villages it is a bigger problem since there is no solution available for them. He has been using a plastic water bottle picked up from a recycling plant for the last eight months since he does not want to add to the plastic waste.
Roy has covered 30,000 km through 14 countries so far. He entered India through Bhutan and passed through UP, Jharkhand and Odisha before reaching AP. He was received in Visakhapatnam by secretary of district unit of Youth Hostels Association of India N. Nageswara Rao.
He will cycle down to the Sadhana forest at Puducherry and stay there for a month participating in the tree plantation programme. He can be contacted on his personal blogwww.threeruleride.comor facebook accountwww.facebook.com/threeruleride.
