Here we are, another year around the sun, another Earth Day.
It may sound a little odd, but Earth Day is one of my favorite days of the year. Even though I fully believe that every day should be Earth Day, I appreciate that this one day of the year seems to bring a lot of awareness and attention to the fact that we have only one earth, and that it is of insane importance to protect her.
As I write this we are in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic. This has been a super scary time for the vast majority of people worldwide as we all shelter in our respective places , and as we are doing this, mother earth has had a chance to breathe, and to do the cleanup she couldn’t keep up with while we were all out there contributing to massive scale pollution. There have been reports of ultra clear water in the Venice canals, air pollution over China has decreased drastically, and pollution in India has subsided so much that they can now see the Himalayas for the first time in decades.
THIS is the beauty that we need to focus on right now - the fact that in just a few short months of change to our daily habits we have seen such a huge improvement in the environment. Now, I know what you’re thinking - “this isn’t sustainable, we can’t all stay in our houses forever” - yes, I agree, BUT what I think needs to be seen is that we CAN make a positive difference in the environment if we want to. If we can enact daily changes to everyones lives, and implement regulations to big polluting businesses, then we can make a huge shift in the climate and get back to a neutral state.
Here are a few things I do in my daily life that help reduce my impact on the environment. These are super easy things that don’t even feel like an effort and are easy to incorporate:
Walk everywhere you can, within reason. If it’s too cold, raining, or too far of a walk, then drive. But make the effort to walk where you can.
Bring reusable bags to the store. This is an obvious one, but one that I don’t see enough people doing. Yes, I forget my bags sometimes, but I make a conscious effort to try to always have them. If I forget, then ALWAYS choose paper.
Bring reusable produce bags! This is a big one. First of all, not every item of produce needs a bag! Fruit and veggies are made with their own special packaging. However, for things like broccoli or lettuce that can get banged up in the shopping process, I bring reusable cloth produce bags to put them in.
Reusable water bottle. I think this is one that a huge majority of people are with these days. Get a hdyroflask, nalgene, whatever you like and carry it with you always - especially when traveling! A lot of people forget about this when traveling, but if you don’t have your bottle with you you have no choice but to either dehydrate (no) or buy plastic water bottles (also no).
Repurpose jars, clothes, etc. Anything that I am done with, I try to reuse. So for instance, I have some old t-shirts I don’t want anymore, but instead of donating them (great option, though), I chose to cut them up and use them as cleaning rags for my house. Not only does this repurpose the shirt, but it saves on using paper towels when cleaning. Same thing for jars. I like to make my own sauces, so any empty jar from a pre-made sauce gets used to store my home-made sauces. Caveat: you should really only re-use glass jars. Plastic leaches toxins more and more with each use.
Recycle your electronics. We all get new electronics from time to time, and when you’re done with an electronic it’s best to take it to an electronic waste recycling service. These places will take apart electronics and recycle every single piece that is eligible for recycling. This way you don’t contribute to the e-waste issue. Best Buy and Office Depot are two that I know for sure do e-waste recycling, but to find somewhere close to you you can just do a quick google search.
Here are my favorite items mentioned above: