7 Measures To Take Care Of The Environment

The Earth is a rich planet and offers us its resources, it is our responsibility to preserve it. We, humans, are part of the planet’s problem: consumption, industry, and pollution are our work and have a great impact on the environment. We lack the precise and necessary information, and frequently we are not aware of what affects our daily activity, in ecological terms, in the deterioration of the planet.

Whenever possible, we must change consumption patterns and integrate sustainable and environmentally friendly habits into our routine, to reduce pollution. Only then will we be able to redirect global warming.

We encourage you to carry out 7 simple practices that protect the environment and combat the greenhouse effect. Surely many of us have already incorporated them into our day to day.

Save the planet!

1. Recycle

Without a doubt, it is one of the simplest ways to counteract how much we dirty. In the article where we commented on practices to reduce pollution, such as avoiding the use of plastics and saving water consumption, we said that waste management is crucial, easy to carry out and that it is one of the main ways we have at our disposal. reach, individually to be respectful of the environment.

There are few localities in the country where this practice cannot be carried out: deposit household waste in separate containers. It is important to understand and pay attention to the information and regulations on recycling measures, and share it with family, friends, and neighbors. It is necessary to separate glass, plastic, paper, organic remains, medicines, footwear and clothing, furniture and junk, electrical components (light bulbs, batteries, CDs), and, used oil. We have at our disposal, in most cases, specific containers, clean or green points, and home collection services through the town halls. There is no reasonable excuse not to separate and recycle, and civil behavior such as leaving garbage on public roads or depositing it in the wrong containers should no longer occur.

Recycling also means giving another use to things that we want to throw away or lengthening the life of some objects. Do you have a broken chair? A lamp that you no longer like, but it works? Give it life, give it another use. Think before throwing them away if they have the option of being restored, given away, or used for another different use.

The objective is common to all: produce less waste, reduce the consumption of polluting material and deposit each waste according to its origin or composition in the appropriate container or place. Recycling is one of the smartest ways to take care of the planet.

2. Save Water From The Cister

It is estimated that in 2050 there will be a shortage of water if we continue at the same rate of growth of the world population and we do not begin to make a rational consumption of water as soon as possible. We must become aware of the misuse or waste of water as a saving measure, not only at an individual level but also to contribute globally to preserving this necessary and precious asset.

Among the most basic, but less frequent measures to save water at home is the consumption of our cistern. We often focus on other cost-saving practices, such as running full loads instead of half loads, not hosing down the floors, opting for a shower instead of a bath, or installing faucets that reduce flow; we forget that many liters of water flushed down the toilet are also consumed.

It must be said that a dispenser is already incorporated in modern toilets, but if we need to reduce the load we can resort to the old trick of false volume: it is about inserting a sealed object with a certain volume into the cistern, such as a plastic bottle. full of water. The effect is that exactly that amount of water in the cistern is reduced and therefore it is saved for each flush. To give a practical example: a 1-liter bottle in the cistern represents a daily saving of about 15 liters for a three-person household. In a year, the savings would amount to about 5,000 liters, which in dollars would be around 30 depending on the population. Now, let’s multiply the water savings by the inhabitants of the planet.

Another simple practice is to acquire the habit of recycling the water we use for washing: fill a shelf, carafe, or bucket with water to empty the toilet instead of just wasting it. Simple, right? The water we use to wash dishes can be stored on a shelf and the dirty water from the scrubbing bucket can also be used. The standard toilet load is about 10 liters on average. A mop bucket can do the same thing. If we go back to the mathematical calculation, we are talking about huge water savings worldwide.

3. Support Renewable Energy

The alternative energies within our reach are respectful of the environment. Applying them in our home not only means considerable savings in economic terms but also shows that we are becoming environmentally aware.

On the planet we have up to seven sources of renewable energy, the only thing is that not all of them are usable as it varies depending on the country. In the United States, we have three major sources of green energy: hydraulic, wind, and solar.

At an industrial level, all three are applied and convert the movement of air or water, together with the capture of solar rays, into sustainable, clean, and indigenous energy.

At a residential level, we can also generate renewable energy: solar panels to heat water and produce electricity, wind turbines to produce wind energy with different applications, and biomass to replace gas, diesel, or electricity to obtain heating. These are the most popular alternatives. popular to save and reduce the consumption of our usual supplies.

In our article on how to save money on your electricity bill, we offer you five ideas or tricks that are easily adaptable to most homes.

It is in our hands to evolve towards a more ecological and sustainable consumption by supporting renewable energies.

4. Avoid Consumerism, Especially in Clothing

If you are wondering what buying clothes has to do with global warming, here are some figures: the fashion industry is huge and produces around 100,000 million garments worldwide every year. Its polluting footprint is proportional. The bad news is that if we continue with this trend – especially in the West – of consumerism, we will buy more and more clothes, but we will give them a less and less useful life.

Predictions for the year 2030 are of an increase of up to 50% in water consumption, the global carbon footprint will increase to almost 3,000 tons, and waste, up to 150 tons. A footprint is too large and dangerous for our planet. How to stop it? Rethink the rate of consumption in the countries where it has become a real problem.

Ways to be more mindful:

Not being fashionable does not mean a lack of good taste in clothing, nor is austerity necessarily a mortification or synonymous with poverty, neglect, or dirt. Looking for cheap clothes in markets, whether new or second-hand, should not be linked to anything negative, it can simply respond to being more environmentally aware.

You can follow some basic rules to have an attic wardrobe, regardless of your clothing budget:

By being more aware of excessive consumerism and the true effect of fashion, we will be able to minimize -together- the environmental impact associated with the textile industry.

5. Reduce Meat Consumption

According to a study carried out by the University of Oxford in England together with the Agroscope Institute of Switzerland, stopping consuming meat or cow’s milk is one of the most effective actions that consumers can take to combat climate change.

Cattle in general and cows, in particular, produce a large amount of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, by digesting their feed. In addition, they cause deforestation, since large open fields are needed for grazing, especially in South America.

Even the UN warns that to curb global warming it is essential to reduce meat consumption, in addition to implementing measures against deforestation and in favor of sustainable land use.

Pasture management and breeding of more productive breeds are also necessary. Some analysts affirm that the change from chronic production to crop fields would not be a panacea either, in the same way, that it is not possible in many cases to change a farm for a crop field. In terms of deforestation and its effects on the environment, it is not always the solution to offer the population alternative sources of protein.

Another factor that is managed is the traceability of the products: conveniently labeled with true information about their origin, it would allow us to be able to choose, for example, the purchase of meat from local producers, with less environmental impact.

Although becoming a vegetarian or vegan may respond to ethical and personal reasons, it must be clear that it is not the universal solution to save the planet, even if it has a different environmental impact. There is no definitive formula to avoid the greenhouse effect, but it is important to reduce emissions from livestock on the planet, this is something that all the countries that investigate the greenhouse effect agree on.

Although there is no body nobody or world authority that can force us or tell us what we should or should not eat, I know that there is a large number of studies, reports, and advice that globally support a balanced diet, containing foods of plant and animal origin produced sustainably. sustainable.

If you have never tried it and want to entertain yourself in discovering how each food or drink affects the environment, you can find calculators on the Internet that inform you with interesting data and comparisons, such as discovering the equivalence of 3 coffees a day in kilometers traveled by car (pollution) or how many liters of water invested are behind its production. Calculate your plastic footprint, the CO behind the food consumed or the equivalents of your diet, and the greenhouse effect.

6. Use the bins and containers

It is a responsible and simple practice that we must instill in future generations. Use them correctly, because a litter bin is not a container.

Years ago -and it still is in some countries-, there were no rubbish bins on public roads. Now they are part of the urban and rural furniture. It is enough to visit other places to observe how the awareness of the population varies in terms of road cleanliness. We could talk about education and awareness because not throwing things on the ground, picking up pet droppings, and using litter bins and containers properly should be integrated into our way of thinking and acting. We are responsible for our garbage, let’s take care of our environment.

Throwing paper in the bin, in addition to guaranteeing the cleanliness of the ground, allows recycling and therefore stops the felling of trees. Let’s explain to the little ones at home the importance of this gesture.

In our walks and excursions to nature, parks, forests, meadows, mountains, and beaches, we collect all the garbage and debris that we have generated, with extreme attention to plastics and glass, which in addition to being toxic can cause serious damage such as injuries to people and animals, fires, etc.

The most common things that we sometimes find lying around take forever to disappear. Do you know the life cycle of a simple folio? From a gum?

Paper: a sheet of white paper takes about 1 year to disappear. If it rains, maybe I’ll do it earlier.

Chewing gum: the chewing gum hardens and adheres to the surface, it remains like a stone. It takes about 5 years to completely disintegrate. Observe the ground of any street and detect the black stains that are mostly chewing gum.

Soft drink can: produced with aluminum and very practical due to its lightness and resistance. The problem is with the forest when it tries to eliminate it. It has to go through a very long process of oxidation and rain cycles so that it ends up disappearing: about 10 years.

Cardboard for juice, milk, and broth: its composition includes cardboard, plastic, and aluminum. That gives it a life of up to 30 years. When you see a tetra brick on the ground and put it in a wastebasket, you are doing a great deal of good.

Plastic bag: we know, the best alternative to this highly toxic piece is to replace it with a recyclable one and use cardboard or cloth. A simple non-ecological supermarket bag lasts between 150 and 300 years! If you use it, recycle or dispose of it in the correct container.

Plastic bottles: they are practical and harmless to our health, but resistant and therefore more than terrible for the environment, as they take up to 4,000 years to disappear. Yes, you read well.

Toys: Even a simple abandoned doll can take up to 100 years to disappear. Most toys have plastics and components that withstand the action of water and sunlight.

Footwear: special mention for sports footwear, which is the most manufactured with rubber and synthetic materials. These ingredients never disappear, they are only reduced

Batteries: it is important to deposit them in specific containers and not mix them with other waste in the garbage, because they contain dangerous chemical products. If they break, they release their poison. Imagine the damage of throwing a battery in a natural environment. They take between 500 and 1,000 years to lose their shape and disappear (completely?).

7. Use Biodegradable Packaging

In our article on how to reduce pollution, we also talk about the urgent need to reduce the consumption of plastics. Plastic, like aluminum, are materials that have undoubtedly contributed to making packaging easier and has given us practicality, among other benefits. The drawback is that they are flooding the planet and represent a high degree of toxicity for flora, fauna, and the seas.

In addition to the advice to reduce the use of plastics, here we want to share the biodegradable packaging options that we will find in the market. Biodegradable materials are those that are made mostly from organic products, therefore they are recycled or degraded naturally. without the need for human intervention: the heat of the sun, the rain, the bacteria, the wind, the humidity, and the fungi are in charge of making them disappear. The residues can also be used for composting, they are perfect as fertilizer for plants.

In the market, we can find containers designed for various purposes, produced from cardboard, palm leaves, wood, vegetable fiber, bamboo, or bioplastic. Containers made with bioplastics are also, despite their name, a sustainable alternative: they come from plant resources such as sugar cane or potato starch. PHA or Polyhydroxyalkanoate is obtained from the fermentation of vegetable raw materials using certain strains of bacteria.

Biodegradable packaging produces less waste, typically requires less energy to manufacture, is 100% renewable, can be used as a fertilizer, does not alter the taste or smell of food, and does not contain harmful chemicals. They are an excellent option to help preserve the environment.