1. Bring your own shopping bag

The usefulness of these thin and easily ripped bags is extremely limited, yet somewhere between five billion and one trillion plastic bags are used each year around the world. Although free to shoppers, these bags have a high environmental cost and are one of the most ubiquitous forms of garbage. Bringing your own plastic bag is common but good environmental advice, such good advice that some governments implemented policies to encourage more people to do it. Disposable shopping bags have been banned in a number of cities, like San Francisco and Washington, D.C.

In addition to bigger carryall bags, you can further reduce waste by bringing your own reusable produce bags or skipping them entirely.

2. Stop buying bottled water

Unless there’s some kind of contamination crisis, plastic water bottles are an easy target for reducing waste. Instead, keep a refillable bottle handy.

3. Bring your own thermos to the coffee shop

Speaking of refillable, bringing your own thermos for to-go coffee is another way to reduce your plastic footprint. Disposable coffee cups might look like paper but they’re usually lined with polyethylene, a type of plastic resin. In theory these materials can be recycled, but most places lack the infrastructure to do so. Then there are lids, stirrers, and coffee vendors that still use polystyrene foam cups—which can all be avoided with your own mug.

4. Choose cardboard over plastic bottles and bags

Generally speaking, it’s easier to recycle cardboard than plastic, plus paper products tend to biodegrade more easily without adding a lot of weight to the product the way glass or aluminum can. So, when you have the choice, pick pasta in the box instead of pasta in a bag, or detergent in the box instead of the bottle. Even better would be to check for companies that source their cardboard sustainably or have a strong stance on deforestation.

5. Say no to straws

Whether for home use or when you’re ordering a drink at a bar or restaurant, plastic straws are often a single-use item that’s just not necessary.

6. Get the plastic off your face

Much of the plastic that’s polluting the oceans is microplastics, tiny chunks that are next to impossible to filter out. These plastics can come from bigger items breaking down, but they are also commonly added to consumer products like facewash and toothpaste. These little beads are intended to be exfoliators, but many wastewater treatment facilities aren’t able to stop them. There are many biodegradable alternatives, so avoid items with “polypropylene” or “polyethylene” on the ingredients list or consider making your own.

7. Skip the disposable razor 

Instead of tossing a plastic razor in the trash every month, consider switching to a razor that lets your replace just the blade or even a straight razor.

9. Make your period waste-free 

There are a number of non-disposable options out there to cut down on period waste, from The Diva Cup to the Ruby Cup. All these choices reduce incredible amount of packaging that most pads and tampons are encased in. If you’re not in a situation where giving up tampons is an option, consider skipping brands with plastic applicators.

10. Re-think your food storage

Plastic baggies, plastic wrap, and plastic storage containers are worth re-evaluating. Instead of sandwich baggies, why not pack a bento box or a cute tiffin (shown at the top of this post) for lunch? Instead of throwing away plastic zipper bags or wrapping things in Saran wrap, why not use jars or glass containers in the fridge? When it comes to carryout, these types of containers be used instead of disposable ones—although it can definitely take a bit of courage and some explaining to help your local restaurants to understand.

11. Shop in bulk 

For many households, the majority of plastic waste is generated in the kitchen. So one of the best ways to reduce the packaging waste madness is to bring your own bags and containers and stock up on bulk foods.

Use natural light!

Just open the curtains and let the light in, not only will it save you money, but it will reduce your energy consumption tremendously! Also close the curtains at night, so that when using the AC at your home, the area still cools down.

Use less hot water

It takes a lot of energy to heat up a tank of water, so putting on the geyser at your home for long hours, will consume a lot of energy. Perhaps using a timer to ensure a regulated amount of time could be efficient.

Wash only full loads of clothes and dishes

Install low-flow shower heads

This will ensure maximum efficiency

Be energy efficient

Using LED lights are more efficient than traditional lightning

1. Plastic is ubiquitous

Plastic debris is found absolutely everywhere, from the Arctic to Antarctica. It clogs street drains in our cities; it litters campgrounds and national parks, and is even piling up on Mount Everest. Also, directly dumping our trash into the nearest river or lake, plastic is growing increasingly common in the world’s oceans.

Mountains of plastic trash have been found everywhere in the world’s oceans, from one of the remotest specks of dirt on the planet, Henderson Island, a tiny uninhabited coral atoll in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, to the deepest spot on Earth, the Mariana Trench, which plummets to a depth of 10,994 meters (36,070 feet) below sea level. As that flotilla of escaped rubber duckies demonstrated, floating plastic even forms massive “garbage patches” swirling slowly in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, thousands of kilometers away from land.

But more than floating around in the water column, plastic trash is found in the guts of more than 90% of the world’s sea birds, in the stomachs of more than half of the world’s sea turtles, and it’s even choking the life out of whales. At the rate at which plastic is accumulating in the oceans of the planet, it’s predicted that, by 2050, the mass of plastic in the world’s oceans will exceed the mass of all the fish that live there.

2. Plastics are one of the main products of fracking

We already know that fracking is bad for the planet — it pollutes water, soil and air with toxins, it creates underground cavities that collapse into sinkholes, and it raises pressure in underground rock formations, destabilizing them and leading to earthquakes, even in places where earthquakes are uncommon. Adding insult to injury, one of the main products of fracking is … plastics. Basically, fossil fuels removed from shale and other rock formations are turned into resin pellets that are used to manufacture ever more plastics, plastics that are easily discarded, plastics that usually are designed to be single use.

You may not know that plastics manufacturers are dangerous to the environment, to wildlife and to people in other ways, too. For example, the British chemical industry giant, Ineos, has 75 manufacturing facilities in 22 countries, including the United States. In addition to contributing to growing mountains of plastic rubbish, Ineos facilities can boast an impressive — and growing — record of fires, explosions, and chemical leaks.

“The Ineos facility in Cologne, Germany was the site of a massive fire in 2008, and there have been a series of high profile accidents elsewhere — a major oil leak in Norway, a number of chemical leaks in France, long-running controversies over chemical dumping in Italy, and the release of toxic gas that resulted in the hospitalization of workers in Belgium,” according to a report written by Food and Water Watch and Food and Water Europe.

3. Plastics kill more than just people

In the last few months, the effects upon wildlife that come from eating, or becoming entangled in, plastic debris have been reported more widely and more often than ever before, leading to public outcry and protests.

These tragic events should come as no surprise: there are an estimated 270,000 tons of plastic floating through the world’s seas where it threatens 700 marine species with its presence. Further, there is growing evidence that plastics play a role in rising rates of species extinctions.

But entangling or lodging inside the digestive tract of an unfortunate victim, like whales and other marine mammals, birds, sea turtles and fishes, is not the end of the line, because plastics do not biodegrade, nor are they digestible. Instead, large plastic pieces break into smaller fragments that are easy for even more animal species to consume. Eating plastics results in malnutrition, intestinal blockage, or slow poisoning from chemicals leached from or attached to plastics.

It’s almost as if seabirds and other marine animals are intentionally seeking out plastics and consuming them — but why? Recent research proposed that plastics in the oceans become covered with marine algae that release a natural sulfur compound, dimethylsulfoniopropionate (DMSP), when they die or become damaged. This chemical is detected by hungry seabirds and other marine creatures, which are attracted to it and then they mistake plastics for lunch.

Not even microscopic animals, collectively known as zooplankton, are safe from ingesting plastics, the only difference being that they consume microscopic plastic bits. Similar to plastics consumption by larger animals, microplastics can result in reduced feeding, energetic deficiencies, injury, or death of zooplankton– A Very Bad Thing since zooplankton are part of the essential foundation upon which the entire marine food web rests.

4. Not all plastic is recyclable and not all recyclable plastic is recycled

People are often confused by the terms, “break down” versus “biodegradable” (or “compostable”). When plastics are broken down, this simply means one large piece of plastic is reduced into a bunch of smaller pieces of plastic. These smaller pieces of plastic can be consumed by smaller animals, but are still indigestible.

A minority of plastics are “compostable” or “biodegradable”, which means they can be reduced to their chemical components by, say, your home compost. Other plastics can only be successfully composted by industrial or municipal facilities after first being separated from other, non-biodegradable, plastics.

Unfortunately, most people are confused as to which plastics fall into this biodegradable category, and this confusion often is most apparent when confronted with unfamiliar plastics in unfamiliar places. For example, are plastic water bottles purchased, say, at the airport biodegradable? Should they be disposed into the recycling bin or into the food waste bin? It’s often challenging to know, especially since little useful information is typically available to quickly make a decision.

5. Most plastics last forever

Once again, as demonstrated by the 1992 rubber duckie escape, plastics survive even the harshest conditions, such as floating around in a marine environment under blistering, unrelenting sunshine or frozen into Arctic ice for years before finally floating away and landing on some faraway shore.

1. STOP EATING MEAT (OR AT LEAST REDUCE IT).

The Environmental Working Group found that red meat is responsible for 10 to 40 times as many greenhouse emissions as common vegetables and grains. If the grain fed to livestock were fed to people, we could feed 800 million people! Reduce your footprint and go meatless.

2. STOP EATING DAIRY.

This has some of the same bleak statistics as mentioned in point one, as well as the fact that it takes a lot of feed to keep a dairy cow alive. 66 per cent of all crop calories goes to cows, and cow farts account for 28 per cent of all methane emissions related to human activity.

3. CHANGE YOUR CAR DRIVING HABITS.

We don’t all have the luxury of walking everywhere, but vehicles are the biggest compromise to our air. Those tailpipes are at street level, where we can inhale the polluted air directly. Consider a world where you carpool, Uber, walk, or take public transit more often.

4. NOTICE HOW YOU USE WATER.

65 per cent of the water we use is in the bathroom. Have shorter showers. Don’t leave the tap running when you’re brushing your teeth. Buy an energy efficient showerhead. It all helps.

5. REDUCE THE AMOUNT OF PAPER IN YOUR LIFE.

Do you know that 40% of the world’s commercially cut timber is used for paper? This endangers natural habitats and uses a ton of water. Since it has become inexpensive to print, we do it without thinking. And lest you think you are paperless, think about your bank statements, the paper towels you use to clean the countertops, the junk mail you haven’t opted out of and the way you wrap your Christmas presents. There are many areas where each of us can help to lessen paper production.

6. USE A REFILLABLE WATER BOTTLE AND REUSABLE LUNCH CONTAINERS.

Bottled water and throw away packaging is wasteful. Landfills are overfilling with water bottles alone. It is also estimated that 3 litres of water is used to package 1 litre of bottled water. It is time to splurge on bottles and BPA lunch packages that will last. Fa

7. BE MINDFUL OF WHAT YOU THROW IN THE TRASH.

From kitchen scraps that can be used to make stocks to items that can be recycled, our trash should be less full the more aware we get. Channel your inner grandmother and see how many times things can be reused or repurposed rather than simply thrown away.

8. BAG IT YOURSELF.

Before venturing out on your next shopping trip, make sure you’ve some reusable shopping bags with you. Plastic bags are a huge threat to marine life, and they’re an inconvenience to the environment. Reusable bags are the way to go!

9. BORROW OR FIX RATHER THAN BUY.

Buying throwaway fashion is detrimental for the environment – 1 kg of fabric generates 23 kg of greenhouse gases! Start thinking about keeping what you own and become more discerning. Darn your socks and sew on new buttons. Borrow clothes if you find you are in between sizes.

Greta Thunberg is a Swedish climate youth activist who sparked an international movement to fight climate change beginning in 2018. With the simple message “School strike for climate” handwritten on poster board, Thunberg began skipping school on Fridays and protesting outside the Swedish Parliament. Thanks to social media, her actions have spread and influenced millions of young people all over the world to organize and protest. 

Launching “Fridays For Future,” Thunberg and other concerned youths throughout Europe have continued to pressure leaders and lawmakers to act on climate change through their regular walkouts. Thunberg has also traveled the world, meeting with global leaders and speaking at assemblies to demand climate solutions and a recommitment to the Paris Agreement. Recently diagnosed with Asperger’s, the activist has publicly shared her views on her disorder, referring to it as her “superpower.”

Her speech at the UN has largely captured the attention of our generation with her desperate cries for action and chilling attacks on politicians favoring monetary gain over the planet. Her and other teen climate activists alike have raised an enormous amount of awareness and what needs to be done. She has inspired us and many alike.

A number of examinations led by scientists around the globe have recorded increments in temperature at Earth’s surface, just as in the environment and seas. Many different parts of the global climate are changing too. High temperature limits and precipitation events are increasing, glaciers and snow covers are contracting, and the ocean ice is melting. Seas are warming, rising, and getting progressively acidic, and flooding has increased along the U.S. coastline. Growing seasons are longer, and large fires happen much more frequently. Numerous species are moving to new areas, and changes in the seasonal timing of significant biological events are happening in light of climate change.

These trends are all consistent with a warming world and are expected to continue.

Many lines of evidence demonstrate that human activities, especially emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases from fossil fuel combustion, deforestation, and land-use change, are primarily responsible for the climate changes observed in the industrial era, especially over the last six decades. The atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide, the largest contributor to human-caused warming, has increased by about 40% over the industrial era. This change has intensified the natural greenhouse effect, driving an increase in global surface temperatures and other widespread changes in Earth’s climate that are unprecedented in the history of modern civilization.

Greenhouse gas emissions from human activities will continue to affect Earth’s climate for decades and even centuries. Humans are adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere at a rate far greater than it is removed by natural processes, creating a long-lived reservoir of the gas in the atmosphere and oceans that is driving the climate to a warmer and warmer state.

Beyond the next few decades, how much the climate changes will depend primarily on the amount of greenhouse gases emitted into the atmosphere; how much of those greenhouse gases are absorbed by the ocean, the biosphere, and other sinks; and how sensitive Earth’s climate is to those emissions.