Category: Eco-friendly lifestyle Page 7 of 8

Explore practical ways to live in harmony with our planet. Discover sustainable habits, eco-conscious choices, and tips to reduce your environmental footprint. From simple swaps to impactful actions, this category guides you towards a more planet-friendly and responsible way of living.

21 Plastic Pollution Quotes Leading To The Right Actions

By Rachel

On August 13, 2022

In Eco-friendly lifestyle

I was in the supermarket checkout queue the other day. There were six checkouts. When I looked around, I was the only one who had brought reusable grocery bags, and the rest of the customers bought new shopping bags for their groceries. At that time, I wished I could tell them not to use new plastic bags because plastic pollution is a huge worldwide problem.

Plastic pollution is harming our marine life and Mother Earth. Just take a look at some of the shocking facts and stats below:

Plastic bags dominate 14.1% of ocean garbage, followed by plastic bottles 11.9% and food containers 9.4%. (2021)
Globally, we get through a staggering 1 million plastic bottles every minute, most of which end in landfills.
By 2050, there’ll be more plastic than fish in the sea.

How about recycling plastic? Unfortunately, how we recycle plastic escalates more unsolved problems because of the sheer volume of plastic we produce and consume daily! Our addiction to plastic is poisoning us and future generations. Plastic waste also causes serious climate change because nearly 99% of plastic is derived from fossil fuels.

So, we’ve got to think hard about our addiction to plastic and how we can stop that. I understand it is hard to change our behaviour if we aren’t fully aware of the seriousness of plastic pollution. However, awareness is just one side of the coin. We also need the belief that you and I together can make profound impacts and lead to great things. This all starts with small steps from individual actions, e.g. not using single-use plastic or buying plastic bags. Remember: we, human beings, are the cause but can be part of the solution if we’re doing the right thing!

Here, I hope the 21 plastic pollution quotes below will raise our awareness, radically change our relationship with plastic and ultimately, we and future generations can all live in a plastic-free world. Less plastic, more living!

Quotes about saying no to plastic use

For the sake of the planet, less plastic, please. – Sir David Attenborough
Giving up plastic water bottles is really, really easy. You just replace it with a reusable water bottle. – Moby, musician
Plastic will be the main ingredient of all our grandchildren’s recipes. – Anthony T. Hincks
A plastic-pollution-free world is not a choice but a commitment to life – a commitment to the next generation. – Amit Ray
We humans have become dependent on plastic for a variety of uses, from packaging to products. Reducing our use of plastic bags is an easy place to start getting our addiction under control. – David Suzuki

If we say no to plastic bags, it will save millions of people down the line. – Amit Ray
I hate plastic bottles. Just think about it before you buy one. We pay more for a gallon of water than we do for a gallon of gas. – Philippe Cousteau

Quotes about plastic pollution and the marine environment

What goes in the ocean goes in you. – surfrider.org

Industrial pollution and discarding plastic waste must be tackled for the sake of all life in the ocean. – Sir David Attenborough
We are being choked to death by the amount of plastic that we throw away. It’s killing our oceans. It’s entering into our bodies in the fish we eat.” – Kevin Bacon
Not only are plastics polluting our oceans and waterways and killing marine life – it’s in all of us, and we can’t escape consuming plastics.” – Marco Lambertini

Quotes about single-use plastic

It’s only one straw, said 8 billion people. – Unknown
Plastic pollution is one of the most visible signs of unsustainable consumption and production. – Inger Andersen
Of all the waste we generate, plastic bags are perhaps the greatest symbol of our throwaway society. They are used, then forgotten, and they leave a terrible legacy”. – Zac Goldsmith
It cannot be right to manufacture billions of objects that are used for a matter of minutes and then are with us for centuries”. – Roz Savage

Quotes about plastic waste

Plastic disposal not only pollutes the land but the water and the air, the three primary elements for any living being on the earth. – Sir P.S. Jagadeesh Kumar
Plastic pollution is a global issue: killing wildlife, contaminating our oceans and waters, and lasting far longer than it is used.” – Leonardo DiCaprio
Only we humans make trash that nature can’t digest. – Charles Moore
Plastic waste is now found in the most remote areas of the planet. It kills marine life and is doing major harm to communities that depend on fishing and tourism. – António Guterres
There is no such thing as ‘away’. When we throw anything away, it must go somewhere. – Annie Leonard
Pollution from oil and gas development, toxic runoff, and miles and miles of plastic trash foul the waters and threaten marine life. – Frances Beinecke

girl wearing white floral dress beside grass plant at daytime

The Easiest Way to Reduce Carbon Footprint

By Rachel

On August 9, 2022

In Eco-friendly lifestyle

If you look up how to reduce your carbon footprint online, you’ll find some common tips, such as flying less, eating less meat and shopping sustainably. However, growing your own food doesn’t usually reach the top list. Yet, I think that is one of the easiest ways to reduce our carbon emissions right now. Besides, growing our foods, aka gardening, brings many benefits to our physical and mental well-being.

Why people don’t grow their own foods?

The reasons could be:

they THINK they don’t have the skills required
they don’t have time to do so
they don’t have time to do so
they don’t have space for growing foods

I can totally relate to why some people think this way because I used to think like that, too. However, two years ago, one of my friends introduced me to gardening, and I came to learn how easy it could be!

Step #1 – Think small

First, forget all those professional gardeners or fancy gardens you’ve seen on TV. Your goal is to try growing your own foods to cut down your carbon/food footprint. You aren’t into this thing to try to compete in next year’s Chelsea flower show. Nor are you buying an allotment and growing all your vegetables so that you never need to buy fresh produce from supermarkets.

So, thinking on a much smaller scale will boost your willingness and confidence to try it!

Step #2 – Choose the easy one

If you’ve never done any gardening, starting with the easy veggies to grow for the first try, such as potatoes, courgettes/zucchinis, or spring onions, is vital. However, from my experience, nothing can be easier to grow than spring onions. What’s more? You don’t even need to buy any seeds to grow that! Let me show you how.

To forget how to dig the earth and tend the soil is to forget ourselves.
Mahatma Gandhi

Step #3 – Use food scraps

In your next grocery shopping, look out for spring onions with roots. The longer the roots and healthier they look, the easier they can be regrown. I got mine with a cheap yellow sticker, i.e. reduced price – very little investment, indeed! 🙂

Next, remove the rubber bands from the spring onions. You don’t need to wash them. Instead, lay them on the chopping board and cut them two to three centimetres from the roots. If you don’t want to measure them, just cut the white bit and leave the green bit for your cooking later.

Step #4 – Choose a sunny day

Choose a sunny and warm day for your first try because gardening is much more enjoyable when the sun is out.

The weather in the UK usually starts to get warmer around mid-May, which is also a good time to try out this experience. In general, spring onions like to be in an open area with plenty of sunshine available. Other than that, they’re really easy to be taken care of.

Step #5 – Get the tools

Trust me, when I said get the tools, you basically need only two items: soil and garden pots. Optional: if you have garden gloves and a garden trowel, that’s great. If you don’t, just use your bare hands instead.

As for the soils, one bag will do. And if you can, please get peat-free soil/compost, which is much better for the climate.

I also like adding some manure to the soil/compost to improve soil texture and water-holding capacity. However, this is optional.

Step #6 – Time to plant

Fill your pots with soil until it reaches the rim of the container. Press the soil a bit so it can provide support for the plant’s roots

but not be compacted because we need water to be well-drained and air to be well-circulated in the pot.

Then use your finger to dig a hole, and stick a spring onion root in the hole. Fill in more soil but make sure a little bit of the stem remains visible. As you can see from the picture, there are two roots in a pot. In terms of how many of them you could have in a pot, it depends on how big your pot is. Just make sure to set each root at least a few centimetres apart.

Once you’re happy with how the roots are planted in the pot, water them gradually until you see the water flowing through the drainage hole at the bottom. NOW, pat yourself on the back because you just completed your first growing-your-own-food project and have started cutting down your carbon footprint. Hooray!

The stem should start growing very soon, especially in warm weather. Below are the ones that have been planted for around four weeks. And they’re ready to be harvested! Caution: don’t let them grow too long because they might start flowering. I usually harvest them when they reach a height of around 20 – 25 cm. Just cut the leaves part, and the stem will regrow new leaves soon.

Making a positive impact on our planet

Are you ready to give this a try? Not only are you going to harvest what you’ve grown for the whole summer but also actively and regularly cut down your carbon footprint – it’s like the saying: kill two birds with one stone! Moreover, once you get a taste of success, it’ll make you want to experience more and try to grow different kinds of vegetables/fruits. You’ll be continuously making a positive impact on our planet!

Growing your own food may be one of the most powerful steps you can take for the health of yourself, your family, and your planet.
Lindsay Oberst

focused asian woman putting chifferi rigati into glass jar

5 SIMPLE Alternatives To Cling Film

By Rachel

On August 7, 2022

In Eco-friendly lifestyle

How many rolls of plastic cling film do you usually go through each year? Do you bin those food wraps after every single use? How about if I told you that I use less than a roll a year, would you believe me?

Cling film is primarily made of plastic to preserve food, and it currently can’t be recycled in the UK. Because of that and its material, I think we should ONLY use it when there is no other alternative.

Alternatives to cling film

a person holding the lid of a food container

glass bowls with silicone/cotton cloth cover
takeaway food containers with a lid (I never throw them away. Trust me! They’re very handy.)
glass jars (I use the jam jars from the jams bought in the store)
beeswax/soy wraps
put the food in a bowl and cover the bowl with the right-size plate (It’s never too old school!)

If it can’t be reduced, reused, repaired, rebuilt, refurbished, resold, recycled, or composted, then it should be restricted, redesigned or removed from production.
Pete Seeger

Can cling film have multiple uses?

Absolutely! Just clean them properly and hang them to dry. I use cling film rarely. After each use, I would rinse and hang them to dry on my dish rack overnight. And next day, I’d check whether there is no hole in the wrap and if it’s in a usable condition. And I put them away in a takeaway container, and they’re ready to be used the next time.

Use cling film for non-food stuff

You can also use washed-and-dried cling film for non-food objects. For example:

when painting the wall where some objects you can’t move, then wrap them with those reusable cling films to avoid paint getting on them.
wrap your paintbrush with the film to prevent the brush from drying out
wrap your liquid bottles with the film to avoid liquids spilling

What other usages of cling film can you think of? Feel free to leave comments below. I’m looking forward to hearing from you.

Further reading: Ten tips to reduce your plastic waste