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When I was a child, I was taught not to waste water or electricity, not to litter and to generally respect the environment and all animals.
I would always switch the lights off when leaving a room. I would try not to take long showers. I would never throw a candy wrapper on the street, and so on. I think I was just being a normal human being. However, as I grew up, I noticed that not everyone behaved with the same respect towards animals and mother nature.
Fast forward twenty years or so, and all the news talks about is how we have littered and abused our planet and keep doing so. This is what many rivers, lakes and seas across the world look like.
Now, of course, I’m not saying I had nothing to do with this and that this is down to all the people who aren’t as diligent as I am about not littering.
I was raised in Italy and recycling wasn’t really a thing when I was young (and still isn’t as developed as in other European countries). We’ll never know how many plastic water bottles, plastic bags, plastic toys and gadgets I have used and discarded in my lifetime. Probably way too many, and even though I always threw stuff in the rubbish bin when I was done with it, I realise now:
a) the rubbish just went from one place to another and some of it probably even got lost on the way to the landfill or recycling plant,
b) the recycling process is a lot more complicated than what I was lead to believe.
How can we fix this?
The obvious solution is to use less plastic.
Plastic is extremely versatile and has thousands of uses. It’s virtually everywhere you look, in many different shapes and forms. Our house is full of it; in the kitchen, the bathrooms, the living room, the bedroom. Every. Single. Room. Of course, some of the objects are more durable than others, it’s not all single-use plastic. But what if I moved away from plastic? What if when things break or needed replacing I replace them with something other than plastic? Maybe made of something more sustainable like glass or wood?
I realise that I am part of the problem and if I want to help solve this problem. I need to change my habits and stop using so much plastic, especially single-use plastic.
We can’t rely on companies and governments to get their act together and do something about it.
I’m not sure what finally made me decide to do something about it. Perhaps it was the documentaries I watched, with images like the one above and the one below. Maybe it was the people I follow on Instagram or seeing photos of animals like the ones of the young whale who died with 88 pounds of plastic in its stomach, the poor albatross, more dead (pregnant) whales, and other animals affected in some way or another by discarded plastic.
I started doing research and looking for “greener” alternatives to common household goods. Luckily, I live in London and there seem to be an ever-growing number of alternative products.
Some plastic-free goods could have a higher carbon footprint than their plastic counterparts, but all-in-all I believe it’s better to decrease the number of plastic objects out there.
Of course, the best way to avoid buying more plastic is to use and re-use what we currently have at home. When I started my journey, I decided to wait for things to run out in order to then replace them with eco-friendlier alternatives. Don’t be tempted to bin everything and start afresh. Just be patient. Use what you have until you’ve run out and you need to replace it. Some things might not even need replacing. For example, I stopped buying fabric conditioner for my laundry. My clothes, towels and I don’t miss it one bit!
Do you want to live a more sustainable and eco-friendly life?
In this blog I’ll share the steps I have taken to lead a more sustainable life, starting with which eco-friendly products I have been using and how I got on with them so hopefully, it’ll make it easier for you to make these simple, little changes that can sum up to a big difference.
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Don’t forget to pin this to your Pinterest board and share the word. 🙂
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