Earth Day celebrates the individual’s ability to make an impact on the whole and empowers communities to make a positive change on the planet. In our current day and age, we are seeing more harmful effects of climate change and global warming due to the overuse of fossil fuels, plastic, and the greenhouse gasses we generate.
In order to reduce our carbon footprint, we need to start thinking about more than just ourselves and make our decisions based on what will benefit the whole. As the 50 year anniversary of Earth Day rolls around, you may be wondering what you can do to make an impact while in quarantine. If you’re looking for some simple ways to take care of the earth while staying healthy and safe, check out these four easy ideas that can be used when you’re stuck at home.
Compost Food Waste
Starting a compost bucket in the kitchen is a pretty great way to reuse waste that would otherwise end up in a landfill. It barely takes any work to start and that compost can be used for gardening, potted plants, or just mixing into the soil outside. If you don’t have a yard or don’t want to start a garden, there are public curbside compost services that will come pick up the compost for you. So much of what we would typically just throw away (coffee grounds, tea bags, fruit and vegetable scraps) can all be composted.
Air Dry Your Clothes
Hanging your clothes up on a clothesline or a drying rack is a super easy way to be an environmentalist while still staying home. Air drying clothes outside will also help them last longer and allows the sun to naturally pull out the unwanted scent. If you don’t have a yard, putting the clothes on a dry rack under a window will get the job done as well.
Using a dryer is definitely convenient, but not necessarily environmentally friendly. According to Energy Saver, the average dryer in the United States uses 2,496 kWh every year. That means, by deciding to air dry your clothes you would be saving over 2,500 pounds of carbon dioxide a year that would otherwise be put out into the atmosphere.
Go Vegetarian For A Day
Eliminating meat from your diet is another impactful way to reduce climate change in 2020. It’s obviously not possible for everyone to go completely vegetarian, but it is possible for most to pass on meat for a day. There are lots of great vegetarian dishes, salads, smoothies, and bowls you can make with just the ingredients in your home. For smoothies and bowls, we’d definitely recommend adding some Vitamin C Powder, Spirulina Powder, or Shilajit Powder to give your immune system an extra boost.
Use Candle Light Instead Of Electricity
How many times have you walked out of the room and accidentally left the lights on? Probably too many to count, right? We all do it and even when we are in the room, that light is using more energy than we realize. It’s also not very good for our eyes and studies suggest that prolonged exposure to certain light sources can lead to irreversible eye damage. Candles are a fun way to mix things up and reduce carbon emissions.
Candlelight isn’t only sexy, it also helps preserve the planet and keeps your electric bill down. Using beeswax or soy-based candles (not paraffin) instead of turning on the lights when you come into the room can set a productive mood, minimize exposure to UV radiation, and make it easy on the eyes.
The Takeaway
Since many of us will want to celebrate Earth Day while still practicing social distancing, why not find ways to go green from home? Taking care of the earth is taking care of the generations that will come after us. It’s one of the most important things we can do and even something so simple as composting can reduce our ecological footprint for years to come.
References:
https://www.earthday.org/history/
https://www.doyou.com/10-simple-ways-to-celebrate-earth-day/
https://www.onegreenplanet.org/lifestyle/things-to-do-with-compost-if-you-dont-garden/
https://smarterhouse.org/start-here/energy-and-environment