little ways you can save the environment
It makes me so gosh dang sad and terrified for the future because of what’s happening to our planet today. I wanted to make this blog because I know there’s at least something on here that you can do. DO ME A FAVOR YALL AND SHARE THIS PLEASE!! It takes one person to make a HUGE impact and it takes so much more to help save our planet. Here’s a list of ideas that you can do that will make a beautiful contribution to mother earth. :) Feel free to add on in the comments if you have any ideas!
SAVING THE BEES.
So I don’t know if you guys noticed but there are less and less bees each year for some reason. I’ve done some research and you guessed it... it’s because of us. Lots of pesticides, global warming, and droughts are causing the bees to disappear. Bees are necessary for plant life because they distribute pollen and help produce 90% of our foods. No bees= no food.
What can you do to help:
-PLANT SOME FLOWERS BABY. Attract bees by planting flowers that produce nectar and helping them provide a food source year round! check out this page to know what kind of flowers you can grow.
https://www.planetbee.org/plant-for-pollinators
-GO ORGANIC. Pesticides are making bees super sick and humans too. Next time you’re going grocery shopping, try finding organic items. It seriously makes a difference.
-DANDELIONS AND CLOVERS IN YOUR BACKYARD. Don’t pull them out! Bees love those.
-DONATE AND SUPPORT! Help beekeepers by buying their beeswax products, (soaps, lotions, and candles) and buy organic or local honey!! If you wanna know how else to save our honeybees, here’s a link: https://thebeeconservancy.org/10-ways-to-save-the-bees/
AIR POLLUTION.
Now I know that pollution has become a regular thing and people don’t care about it so much, but uh first of all you should. Pollution is the reason why for global warming, which is destroying a bunch of habitats for a bunch of animals necessary for the food chain and possibly human life. And it also sucks breathing in disgusting air that causes other health issues. Alrighty let’s start this list.
-LESS DRIVING AND MORE WALKING. I know, cliche. If you need to visit your neighbor, literally walk it. If you need to be somewhere less than a mile, walk it. Or bike it. hover board it. skate board it. scooter it. The less driving you do, the less carbon dioxide emits to the air and less greenhouse gases the earth traps. And more exercise baby.
-PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION. Buses, carpooling, and trains helps reduce air pollution!
-SHOP WISELY. Next time when you go to the store ask yourself this: Do I need it? Are there better options than this item? (like “100% made from recyclable blah blah”) Cause if you’re going to end up throwing this item away, then you’ll create more waste which emits more CO2 in the air.
- TURN OFF LIGHTS OR USE SOLAR PANELS. this is pretty self explanatory.
-PLANTS. Now instead of saying plant trees, cause it’s lowkey kind of unrealistic for some people including me to plant a whole dang tree in my yard, I’m going to simply say plant plants that absorb air pollution. Here’s a link for some ideas of which plants you can buy:
https://www.gardencentreoxford.com/news/how-to-beat-air-pollution-with-
plants
ECOSIA. Orrrr if you still wanna plant trees you can download this extension & app called Ecosia! It’s basically like google but so much better. Basically it makes money off ads when you search something up. And here’s the awesome part, every 45 searches they PLANT A WHOLE DANG TREE. Not only you’re helping the environment, but you are helping people who are in third world countries or live in extreme environments where its hard to find food, good water, education, and jobs. Ecosia supports all of that. DOWNLOAD IT YALL!!! I’ve planted probably about like 5 trees!
PLASTIC POLLUTION.
This is probably one of my biggest concerns. We create and throw away SO much plastic. Okay story time. literally a year ago, i was hiking with my friends and we sat down on this bench. We saw this like tiny chipmunk probably the size of my hand and he was running towards this huge grocery walmart plastic bag. And all of a sudden he shoves that whole entire bag into his mouth and we sat there with our mouths wide open. It was kind of tragic and that chipmunk probably died. And there’s a bunch of animals that consume plastic and die because they are trapped in plastic. Anyways there’s a bunch of ways that we can reduce plastic use, so let’s get on with it.
RECYCLE. Imma say it over and over again. Recycle, recycle, recycle. A lot of plastics have recycling labels on them, so recycle them as much as you can!
PICK UP YOUR JUNK. If you litter, you better change your ways my dude. If that piece of garbage travels somewhere and an animal finds it, what is the likelihood that they will eat it or get stuck in it? That’s not the only case of course, but your trash also emits CO2. Also remember this if you see any garbage that’s not yours, pick it up. It may not be your junk, but it is your planet.
BUY A REUSABLE WATER BOTTLE. If you guys can’t remember anything else, PLEASE REMEMBER THIS! There is more than 8 million TONS of plastic water bottles are in our oceans. An average person uses 167 water bottles per year. That is unacceptable my dudes. As you may know, plastic don’t break down easily but instead turns into micro plastic items that animals consume. It causes starvation, and kills animals. So buy a reusable water bottle. I’ve noticed that when I have a water bottle, I drink more water and save more money. If there’s ever a chance you forget a water bottle and need a plastic one, try reusing it as much as possible.
SHOPPING FOR REUSABLE AND COMPOSTABLE PRODUCTS. I’m probably going to make another post for this, cause the list is getting long. There’s a lot of eco-safe options to reduce plastic. Like toothbrushes, tooth paste, and toiletries.
BEACH CLEAN UPS. If you live next to a beach, try researching about ways you can help your beach, or bring your friends to help clean the beach up. You can also help by donating to beach cleanups!
FOODS
Now don’t get my wrong, I love meat and dairy. But it’s also important that we don’t eat too much meat, cause meat and dairy emits a lottt of greenhouse gases. Transportation of this food, producing it, and then wasting it is a no no for mother nature.
LIMIT YOUR MEAT AND DAIRY INTAKE. I’m not saying become vegan and vegetarian. Like honey, keep eating meat and dairy! It can be good for you. But maybe have a plan like oh I’m only going to eat meat twice a week now instead of everyday of the week. Or try being more considerate of a healthier diet.
SUNSCREEN.
Now, there are some arguments of whether sunscreen is affecting our coral reefs or not. But it’s always better to be safe than sorry. Studies have shown that there are chemicals called titanium dioxide, oxybenzon, octinoxate, and others are harmful to humans and coral reefs. It bleaches the corals into this ugly gray color. Coral reefs are essential to ocean life, and it’s gonna suck if the ocean is dead.
WHAT TO LOOK FOR. Try finding sunscreens that say “Reef safe” or “reef friendly” sunscreens. sunscreens such as Coppertone, equate, and sunbum are NOT safe. Mineral sunscreens ( i don’t tend to like them cause of the white cast) and banana boat are safe. You can research this more if you want!
okay there are plenty of ways that you can do to help the environment, but these are some of the ideas. I hope this encourages you than overwhelm you. You don’t have to be perfectly zero waste or feel the need to do all of this. We’re never going to be perfect but we can be and do better. Share this please! Please consider doing at least 1 or 2 of these. Because YOU can make a HUGE difference to our world.