Saturday, April 22, 2017

Three Ways I Help Mother Earth

Happy Earth Day!

Photo by Scarlett Knight

For this Earth Day, I wanted to do a quick post to share with you three specific ways I try to be kind to Mother Earth.

1) I use reusable bags. There really is no excuse to keep using paper or especially that nasty plastic anymore. Almost every major store you go to - grocery stores, retail, even online stores - have reusable shopping bags for sale. It is super easy to get into the habit of taking them with you, and you can even keep one or two in your car for the impromptu shopping trip. This reduces the massive problem we have of all the plastic bags we have out there just floating around, invading the ocean, and just causing an overall mess for the earth.

2) I bring home plastics from restaurants. Many restaurants will use plastic cups to patrons who want to get a drink from the water or soda fountain. I will take the cups with me, along with any other hard plastic that would otherrwise be thrown away, and put it in my recycling bin at home.

3) I put anything and everything in the recycling bin that is allowed to go in there. Especially plastic. If that means taking an extra minute to rinse out milk jugs, I do it. I recycle glass bottles, paper, you name it. It's astounding to see how much just one household with two people and a dog can accumulate in terms of recyclable materials each week. This is trash that would otherwise go to a landfill or be dumped into the ocean. It may not seem like much, but it certainly adds up.

Do you consider yourself a green person? What do you to do help the earth?


XoXo

Scarlett

4 comments:

  1. I have to recycle or I could get fined by the local authority (and they check your bins to make sure you aren't putting stuff in the wrong ones), I have 4 bins - normal waste, recycling (plastic, paper, cans, glass), food waste and garden waste bins. Since they introduced this system it's amazing how much gets recycled rather than goes in normal waste. I think our restaurants and cafes have to separate their waste too, so plastic cups will be recycled by them. Certainly all cafes here have separate bins.

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    1. Wow, I wish the US would implement something like this! Some cities don't even have recycling available as an option, which is a shame. It is surprising, once you start recycling, to see how much you can save from going into landfills or the ocean!

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    2. I reckon that instead of one full bin a week for landfill we now produce a third of a bin every two weeks. We used to recycle just 7% of rubbish twenty years ago in Britain and now it is 50%. Freenhouse gases caused by waste disposal have gone down 70% in 20 years. Amazed it's not more prevalent in the US but then you refused to sign the Kyoto protocol on pollution!

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  2. Wow, that's impressive! And yes, the US is abysmally behind when it comes to this kind of thing.

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