Most of the damage done to our environment is done through day to day activities that seem to be harmless. We are not consciously making decisions to pollute, but we are also not consciously making decisions to help. These are a few things I have implemented into my daily life that make a small difference every single day. The environmental mess we are in is a big one, but if everyone does their part we can make a massive impact.
1. Bring your own cup.
Working at a coffee shop makes it easy to see how many disposable cups are used every day, and coffee comes with a lot of waste attached already. The cup, the cardboard sleeve, and the plastic lid all end up in the trash even though two of those items could be recycled. Our iced coffees come in plastic cups with lids and straws, and while they are recyclable, the vast majority of them are simply thrown away. Of the hundreds of customers I saw this morning during my seven hour shift, only four of them brought their own travel mug to fill with coffee.
There are 58 billion paper cups thrown out every year in the United States alone. That means over 1 billion every week, and about 159 million every single day.
In fact, 58,000 homes could be powered every year from the energy it takes to produce and dispose of paper cups.
I'm sure everyone reading this owns a travel mug, and all I'm asking you to do is use it! Many coffee shops will actually give you a discount for bringing your own cup. My travel cup of choice is a 12 oz. mason jar with a reusable cloth sleeve that I bought at a craft fair. I have made it a habit to carry a jar with me even if I'm not planning to get coffee or tea. You never know when a friend will invite you to Starbucks, or when you'll need to fill up at the water fountain.
I feel this also pertains to bringing reusable bags to the grocery store. Plastic bags never break down, and are a serious danger to wildlife. You can even purchase reusable produce bags to buy fruits and vegetables in bulk. I place most of my produce right into the cart, no bag necessary! Reusable bags are cheap, and would make great stocking stuffers for family!
2. Chose Your Clothes Wisely.
What do clothes have to do with the environment? Surprisingly, quite a bit. The textile industry takes the bronze medal for the amount of water consumed worldwide, paper and oil industries get the gold and silver. To put into perspective for exactly how much water is used, about 30,000 liters of water is needed to produce only 1 Kg of cotton.
Carbon emissions are also a large concern. Most of our clothes are made in factories located in places like China, India, and Bangladesh. Not only are the women working in these factories paid extremely low wages for working endless hours, but the greenhouse gas emissions are significant. The shirt you are wearing right now could have produced as much as 6kg of C02, which is probably around 20 times the weight of the shirt itself.
Thrift shopping is the new cool thing right? It's probably the least wasteful way to shop, as long as you love what you're buying. I am a big believer in quality over quantity when it comes to clothes, so I finally made the promise to myself that for every new article of clothing I buy, I will donate one. This way my closet never grows, but I can slowly replace my impulse purchases with longer lasting fair trade or secondhand items.
My mom would always take me to Goodwill or MCC Connections to see if we could find what I needed before spending a lot of money on brand new items. As a child I hated it, but now I am grateful that I had such a good role model in the world of reducing, reusing, and recycling. I challenge you to begin shopping at secondhand stores first, and to be intentional with every clothing purchase you make. Ask yourself if you could wear this new item with at least three things you already own, and most importantly if it makes you feel good.
3. Compost.
Basically, this is just collecting your food scraps in a dirt pile and letting it rot to create nutrient rich soil. Skyler and I live in an apartment so we aren't able to have our own compost pile, but we collect it in buckets and take it to my university garden about once a week. There are lots of youtube videos that show how to compost in apartments if you have the room!
Food waste is the number one material sent to landfills. That fact is mind boggling to me. All we have to do is throw it in some dirt with some worms and nature does the recycling for us! Instead, we wrap it in plastic and throw it away with all of our other waste, now toxic to the environment.
San Francisco seems to be leading the country in environmental policy change. They recently banned plastic bags, and they have diverted 80% of waste from landfills by implementing good recycling and compost programs.
When we first moved into our apartment, we would have to empty our large kitchen trash can once about every week and a half, now that we compost and recycle, we have made it more than a month without having to empty the trash!
We have to stop looking at what we buy as if it can truly be "thrown away" because not many things that we use actually disappear when we are done with them. We are literally running out of space to put our trash! Think of all the disposables you use each day and see if there is an alternative that's higher quality and better for the environment. Anything from reusable make-up pads to cloth diapers to stainless steel straws.
It is these simple changes that can make an impact over time. If you start reducing your waste, people will ask questions, they will want to know why, and you will get to tell them. Maybe you will inspire others to do the same!
As the holiday of Thanksgiving is near, think of all that you have, and all that you probably don't need. Thank God for granting you the ability to chose how much you consume. We have the power to show love for this beautiful earth through the small choices we make every single day.
Choose to say "I have enough."
Chose to believe "I am enough."
