While eating your dinner, you are probably focused on the hectic day you had or listening to someone else’s rant. You might be serving everyone and holding off eating until everyone is happy. You might be proud of the meal you prepared. But did you ever think about where it all came from? Your salad could have lettuce from California. Your potatoes might be from Idaho. Your stew has ingredients from all over the world.
Plastic and plastic byproducts can take hundreds of years to decompose...IF they ever decompose at all. Toothbrushes, toilet bowl scrubbers, and towel racks are just a few items that are generally made from plastic or a plastic byproduct. I bet there are tons of pounds of those items alone all over the planet. There are always other options!
As humans, we have a tendency to consume, discard, and repeat. Too much taking without giving back can (and does) reap dire consequences. For instance, cutting down a forest full of trees for lumber without planting new trees can cause major soil erosion, and it takes away from the animal habitat.
Today I'd like to share with you 7 ways you can give back to the Earth and the environment. We live in a massive circle of life and when we are given such bountiful gifts of love and life it is wise to keep that circle moving. Here’s how you can do your part:
Human beings run on energy and to run our bodies, we use food as fuel. It may seem ironic, then, that in a bid to harness more kinds of natural and renewable energy, certain plants are grown with the single-minded agenda of turning them into biofuel or combusting them to generate energy. Such plants are dubbed ‘energy crops.’
Looking for more natural ways to wash those dirty clothes? Try organic soap nuts! Soap nuts, otherwise known as “soap berries," come from the Chinese Soapberry tree (Sapindus mukorossi). Although they look like nuts, they are actually dried fruit that is similar to lychee. Soap nuts are usually harvested after they drop from trees grown in the jungles of Indonesia or India. Soap nuts have various uses, and they can be used for cleaning more than just your laundry.
More and more people are trying to live life as organically as possible – and the sentiment applies to more than just the food that’s consumed. When growing your own food, it is possible to be successful even without the use of chemical-filled fertilizers and chemical bug sprays. Chemical products are harmful to our body, the environment, and all of the inhabitants upon Unci Maka - Grandmother Earth.
More and more people are switching over to various forms of alternative energy. There are several reasons people decide to choose a more environmentally safe and sound source of energy. A majority of people are switching to alternative energy to minimize their carbon footprint but some simply strive to be self-sufficient.
Everyday, we create waste. It's inevitable. We discard – hopefully into the proper receptacle – items that we no longer want, need, or desperately need to get rid of for sanitary purposes. Food wrappers, packaging, and a handful of undesirable items are hauled off into the landfill. This is a luxury we have by living in a first world country. What I find mind blowing is that along with all our trash we get rid of, we also throw away the earth. It wasn't until I saw a trash bin piled high with yard waste that the absurdity of it all hit me.
As we discussed in part one of Solar Panels: A Beginner’s Guide, solar panels and solar systems can be very simple but at the same time very complex. A simple system is designed to take the power produced by the sun and absorb it into the solar panels.
Many people take water for granted: Either they waste it or they simply don't appreciate it. But here's the thing most people forget: There's only so much water on this earth, and we can't make any more of it. Sure, there's a lot of water on earth, but did you know that 96.5 percent of it is too salty for human consumption? Not to mention two thirds of the remainder (freshwater) is locked in polar ice, permanent snow, and glaciers.