My name is NinaMaria, and I'm an advocate of making the Earth a cleaner place to live. For me it all started a few years ago when I saw a video narrated by Jeff Bridges posted on my Facebook feed. This video opened my eyes to the things that I was doing that were so harmful to the place I live. Now, I'm no Lebowski, but I hope to encourage others in some way to be more eco-aware.
4 Easy Things you can do to Reduce Plastic Waste:
Recommended Videos
1) BYOB - Bring Your Own Bag
More than 1 million plastic bags are used every minute (ecowatch.com). Just bringing your own reusable bags to the grocery store is already a huge step in helping our planet heal. Plastic bags are often confused as jellyfish by sea turtles, fish, and other sea life that eat them; killing them as a result. A good tip is to always keep at least one reusable bag in your car for those impromptu stops to the store.
2) Stop buying water bottles and use a refillable one
Using your own refillable water bottle is not only an easy and helpful alternative, it is also more cost-effective! Some people swear by the cleanliness of purified water, but a quick fix is to buy a water filter for your sink, and there you go, you're one step closer to making this world a better place.
3) Skip the straw
Straws are often ingested and kill animals, sometimes after a very painful experience. Straws are so easily used, and dropped into the garbage instantly becoming a pollutant. Skip the straw and save a marine animal.
4) Recycle
Recycling may not be the number one solution, but it is definitely a step in the right direction. Take account of all the plastic containers you use, most of these things can be recycled. Examples of these things would be: shampoo and hair conditioner bottles, lotion bottles, most containers food comes in, bottles of cleaning supplies, to-go containers, plastic cups, and the list goes on. Just take a look at the bottom of the container for a little recycling symbol with a number inside and check with your city on which types of plastics they recycle. Many cities will even come pick up your recycling for you!
And there you have it! 4 east steps you can do to take care of the Earth.
Here's why you should do them:
The average American throws away approximately 185 pounds of plastic per year (ecowatch.com). That's 88,000 tons of plastic thrown away each day in just the U.S. alone (plasticpollutioncoalition.org). This is equivalent to the weight of about 16,000 elephants!
All of this plastic ends up in landfills and our oceans, and the detriments are astonishing.
The ocean has collected so much plastic waste that it has formed five massive plastic gyres in our surrounding oceans, one of which is twice the size of Texas. Plastic on the ocean's surface has sea life outnumbered six to one (plasticpollutioncoalition.org). Many animals are harmed and killed because of this deadly pollution.
This plastic affects not only animals and the environment, it affects us, too! Plastic spoils our groundwater and poisons our food chain.
It's time to clean up our act, literally.
If you like learning about helping the environment, these YouTubers have excellent channels to watch. Trash is for Tossers and Sustainably Vegan have some great content that focuses on alternatives you can use to reduce your waste.
NinaMaria is a writer for Local 4 and an avid environmentalist. You can see more of her on her Facebook: facebook.com/nina.badalamenti.1 or follow her on Instagram @ninamaria96.