We Do Have to Share the Planet You Know.....
Last night I was on the bus going to work and a post popped up in my Facebook feed; it was about recycling and at the end there was a link to about 20 photographs, all of animals in various states of distress or malformation due to rubbish that has been thrown away by people. Here is the link to the photos: http://www.thinkinghumanity.com/2015/05/you-will-want-to-recycle-everything-after-seeing-these-photos.html As far as I am concerned I do not consider myself an activist in any
way, I do not post rants on either my personal or business Facebook page over
anything really, nor political statements or anything of the like. I
also do not get truly angry very often, there is little that can make me
genuinely angry. However, this is one of the things that can. I am
going to do a bit of finger wagging now because with the best will in
the world we are all a little guilty of this.
I know most people these days are actually socially conscious and responsible, at least a little bit and try to recycle etc, etc. But do you do it quite as much as you should? One of the things that I think is a very big part of being environmentally responsible is knowing where your rubbish is going. If someone asked you where you think both your recycling and non recyclable rubbish went once it was collected what would you say? Could you say? And to be fair, we are all responsible for what we throw away, if only in a small way.
And I am not saying that we should all be responsible for the disposal of all our own rubbish past putting it into the proper receptacle for disposal. What I am saying is find out what your local council does with it. How much of your recycling actually gets recycled and how much gets dumped in landfill? If the local landfill is full where does it go? A lot of the time it gets shipped somewhere else, what happens to it then? Find out why they do not have a wider range of things that they recycle, and if you have something that cannot be recycled through your local council (such as TetraPaks for instance) is there anywhere else it can be recycled? Name and shame, social media can be really useful for this kind of thing.
As for what we are personally responsible for, what we buy and the packaging that it is in is one of them. Choices have consequences. Find an alternative to cling film, it cannot be recycled and kills everything it comes into contact with once it hits the environment. Especially if it gets in the sea as turtles and other creatures mistake it for jellyfish along with carrier bags. And they are another thing, avoid carrier bags like the plague! Use the long life ones if you need but only if you absolutely have to. The same goes for those really thin sandwich bags that come with the tie wraps. Buy brands of goods that have recyclable packaging and contact the companies who don't and ask them why they don't. Or tell them that you no longer want to their products because they are being environmentally irresponsible and contributing to the great rubbish tip that is our planet. Complain to supermarkets about the percentage of their own brand label goods being recyclable and ask them why they have any packaging that isn't recyclable. Ask them also why they stock brands that don't have recyclable packaging.
Don't buy beauty products with microbeads in them, sign petitions, start petitions, start conversations, whether with random people on the bus, on Facebook or environmental groups and on forums. Find out what you can do to help clean up your area, then do it. Get other people doing it with you, get the kids doing it, lecture people, guilt people, say something to people when you see them dropping stuff on the floor. Don't let your own kids litter.
Invest in companies that have a good environmental reputation and tell them why you're investing. Avoid companies that have a bad environmental reputation and tell them why too.
People, individuals, have power, all of us can instigate change in our own lives and in the system, we just have to speak. Public opinion is a powerful tool. Companies are protective of their reputations, if you ask them why their percentage of recyclable packaging isn't higher they will answer and also, it is about demand. If enough people let them know they want something, they will see there is a demand and this can lead to change. Slowly maybe, I am not saying this will happen overnight but it is likely to happen.
If you want to start but have absolutely no idea how then My Zero Waste is quite a good place to start, here is the link https://myzerowaste.com/
There is so much that we can do as individuals, just think what we could do if every individual did something.
#changestartswithyou
I know most people these days are actually socially conscious and responsible, at least a little bit and try to recycle etc, etc. But do you do it quite as much as you should? One of the things that I think is a very big part of being environmentally responsible is knowing where your rubbish is going. If someone asked you where you think both your recycling and non recyclable rubbish went once it was collected what would you say? Could you say? And to be fair, we are all responsible for what we throw away, if only in a small way.
And I am not saying that we should all be responsible for the disposal of all our own rubbish past putting it into the proper receptacle for disposal. What I am saying is find out what your local council does with it. How much of your recycling actually gets recycled and how much gets dumped in landfill? If the local landfill is full where does it go? A lot of the time it gets shipped somewhere else, what happens to it then? Find out why they do not have a wider range of things that they recycle, and if you have something that cannot be recycled through your local council (such as TetraPaks for instance) is there anywhere else it can be recycled? Name and shame, social media can be really useful for this kind of thing.
As for what we are personally responsible for, what we buy and the packaging that it is in is one of them. Choices have consequences. Find an alternative to cling film, it cannot be recycled and kills everything it comes into contact with once it hits the environment. Especially if it gets in the sea as turtles and other creatures mistake it for jellyfish along with carrier bags. And they are another thing, avoid carrier bags like the plague! Use the long life ones if you need but only if you absolutely have to. The same goes for those really thin sandwich bags that come with the tie wraps. Buy brands of goods that have recyclable packaging and contact the companies who don't and ask them why they don't. Or tell them that you no longer want to their products because they are being environmentally irresponsible and contributing to the great rubbish tip that is our planet. Complain to supermarkets about the percentage of their own brand label goods being recyclable and ask them why they have any packaging that isn't recyclable. Ask them also why they stock brands that don't have recyclable packaging.
Don't buy beauty products with microbeads in them, sign petitions, start petitions, start conversations, whether with random people on the bus, on Facebook or environmental groups and on forums. Find out what you can do to help clean up your area, then do it. Get other people doing it with you, get the kids doing it, lecture people, guilt people, say something to people when you see them dropping stuff on the floor. Don't let your own kids litter.
Invest in companies that have a good environmental reputation and tell them why you're investing. Avoid companies that have a bad environmental reputation and tell them why too.
People, individuals, have power, all of us can instigate change in our own lives and in the system, we just have to speak. Public opinion is a powerful tool. Companies are protective of their reputations, if you ask them why their percentage of recyclable packaging isn't higher they will answer and also, it is about demand. If enough people let them know they want something, they will see there is a demand and this can lead to change. Slowly maybe, I am not saying this will happen overnight but it is likely to happen.
If you want to start but have absolutely no idea how then My Zero Waste is quite a good place to start, here is the link https://myzerowaste.com/
There is so much that we can do as individuals, just think what we could do if every individual did something.
#changestartswithyou
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