Today's blog every day in May challenge is: Talk about being green, eco-friendly or ethical. What do you do to make a difference?
We recycle everything we can - glass, paper, plastic, card, junk mail, packaging materials etc. I'm conscious when buying things with plastic you can't recycle in this country and try to avoid it. I know a lot of plastic is shipped off to China and other places to be recycled as we can't deal with it here. What the hell is that about?! If it's sold here it should be recycled here, or else it shouldn't be used. We shouldn't be polluting the fuck out of other countries! That's all wrong.
We have over 10 strong jute/reusable carrier bags, so when we go food shopping we use those. If we leave them at home by accident I'd rather buy more jute/reusuable bags than use normal carrier bags, which is how we've ended up with so many. I get annoyed with myself if we forget our reusable bags. When I'm in town unless I buy something huge or heavy I usually throw it in my huge Mary Poppins handbag. When we have the shopping delivered, we recycle spare plastic bags with Tesco.
We're always getting those plastic bags through the door from charity shops who collect your unwanted bits and bobs so we often donate that way. We only throw things out if they're broken or not in a state to be reused. We put our old Christmas tree out with a sign on it saying 'Please take' last year and it was snapped up straight away.
Of course there's more to do to be greener - there always is. In an ideal world I'd go to butchers, bakers etc. and pop everything in a string bag 70s style so there's no need for plastic packaging, but who honestly has the time or energy to do the rounds of the local shops?
I read the newspaper and some magazines online as it's just a waste of paper to have them laying around the house.
Something I always do and have done since my teens is cut those plastic things which hold drinks cans together into tiny pieces. I've seen some really awful photos of sea birds and turtles who've got caught up in them when people don't cut them up.
Another thing we do when out and about in public is take our litter home with us, don't pick flowers and only take photographs, as the old saying goes.
Something I've recently found out about is palm oil. The need for palm oil (which is in bloody everything from food to toiletries) is one of the reasons mass deforestation is happening, and threatening the habitat of orangutans.
What do you do to take care of the environment in your own little way?
Thanks for reading!
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