Going Green with Suchin Pak

Written by Hazel Lodevico

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Paper or plastic? Answer yes to either one within earshot of Planet Green co-host and former MTV anchor Suchin Pak and you’re only asking for trouble. That’s what happened when Pak filled up at a local gas station and observed a customer accepting a plastic bag for her purchase of a single Gatorade bottle.

“I thought, ‘Did she really need that bag to carry one Gatorade bottle five steps out to her car?’” Pak says. Not one to keep her thoughts to herself, Pak confronted the woman. “I said, ‘If you don’t need that bag anymore, I’ll take it back to cashier for him to reuse.’ She looked at me like I was nuts! But then she realized she really didn’t need the bag anyway and gave it to me.”

Pak doesn’t mind berating her friends or even complete strangers about the simple things they can do to live more green. It comes with the territory of enlightening others about a topic she’s passionate about.

Although she doesn’t call herself an activist, Pak certainly thumps the Green lifestyle. Her proselytizing about all things sustainable has even her friends rolling their eyes. But for Pak, being Green is not the trendy in thing to do, it’s everyday life. She’ll carry trash around until she sees a recycling bin, she rarely uses her dryer and she even showers with organic floor soap. Yes, floor soap.

“I love Dr. Woods cleaning products. It works wonders for my house, and it’s great on hair,” Pak insists. “it works so much better than a lot of the cleaning and body products out there. Everything, my house, my bathroom, my hair—they all smell like peppermint.” “I don’t think of living a sustainable lifestyle as a choice,” says Pak. “We have no choice. There is no alternative. Just reading about some of the statistics and facts about what’s happening to our planet has me screaming! And here are just some simple things we can all do to make a huge difference.”

These simple things are showcased in Planet Green’s The G-Word, where Pak gets to explore and divulge green tidbits from sustainability experts and enthusiasts from around the world. No, the GWord is not a call to return to Little House on the Prairie days, preelectricity and running water. The show makes living more green look easy and, well, cool.

Take for instance one episode where Pak and co-host Daniel Seiberg host an eco-friendly bikini fashion show—pieces that look like they’re straight from high fashion summer collection. No longer are green fashions all about hemp clothing, unappealing shapes and fabrics. Now you can wear a chic bikini made of biodegradable fabrics such as organic cotton, soy and bamboo-based products.

So how did Pak get tuned into the Green lifestyle? Well, she is from Berkeley, CA.

“Hippy is in my blood,” she jokes. But you can also say it was engrained in her by her Korean parents.

“My parents were so not hippies, but they were greenest people I knew,” says Pak. “They always reused everything, and never wasted food. They’d take old water and use it to water the plants. Maybe it’s an Asian thing, but as I got older and started making my own decisions, I never really forgot those values.”

Listening to Pak praise the wonders of floor soap, it seems Pak should be dreadlocked and barefoot on Haight and Ashbury. But the petite former MTV anchor defies the stereotype of people who actually care about the environment.

“I’m pretty high maintenance,” Pak says. “I won’t use it or wear it if it seriously does not look that good on me or doesn’t give me the same kind of results as other products would. You won’t catch me wearing hemp clothes or tire sandals.”

While some of Pak’s green lifestyle may seem a little extreme for some, Pak insists that going green is actually a piece of cake.

“It’s all about tapping into a new routine,” says Pak. “Everyone knows how to throw something in the trash, but it doesn’t take that much effort to toss that item in the recycling bin right next to it. It’s also about becoming more aware about the products you use and how you use it. I think what’s great about the G-word is that it talks about living green in an easier and accessible language we can all understand, and how we can apply it to our everyday lives.”