Hi everyone!
I have decided to take my blog a bit more seriously and will start re-vamping it! Please bear with me while my blog is under construction! I have a lot of new things coming- a wider scope of topics to post about (including politics!) and a much neater and easier to navigate website.
Thanks!
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“It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.” -Eleanor Roosevelt
Hi everyone!
I hope you are all enjoying your Monday. I am going to talk about an aspect of the zero waste movement that *should* concern everyone, zero waste or not.
Everyone produces garbage. Although this movement tries to mitigate that garbage by as much as we possibly can, the reality is that everyone else in the world isn’t living like this. Everyone is producing some sort of garbage, whether it gets recycled into something new, composted into soil, or reused, we will stop using all the products we use at some point, and where it goes is up to us.
Believe it or not, there are people in this world who don’t really think about where their garbage is going. Whether they’re too lazy to recycle, can’t afford a recycling bin, or don’t know enough about their town’s recycling system to begin to even think of it, it isn’t as easy as we think for many people to discard their trash in a responsible manner.
A little over a month ago, I went on my friend’s boat for the 4th of July. We anchored next to an island that is a nature preserve, and the biggest island in my area. We swam to the island and walked around. Walking around, I noticed that although from afar the island looks untouched, that people have been here, or at least, people’s trash has been here. Beer cans, bits and pieces of plastic, and scraps littered the shore of the island. I couldn’t finish looking around the beautiful island because I got bitten up so badly by horseflies, but if I were to, I can only imagine how much more trash I would find. It was truly heart breaking because this island is absolutely beautiful (photo below).
A few hours later, on our way back to the marina, we saw a balloon floating on the water. It was a 3rd birthday balloon for a boy. Although I protested to go get it, we were going too fast and no one cared enough to.
Now, I am on vacation in Florida. Yesterday we spent the day on the beach, and my dad went swimming for a while. When he got back, he told me that he saw a floatie lingering in the water, and he tried to get it and bring it back to shore, but it was too far away. He said it would probably either come back in with the tide or float out to sea. Devastated, I looked at the water and saw the pink floatie hundreds of feet away, with no chance of anyone swimming to it unless they were on a boat.
Landfill trash is a problem. It can leach through the soil, contaminate food and water, and also gives off methane, a greenhouse gas. Ocean trash is a different problem. Ocean trash floats for years and years, fish and birds and other marine animals eat this plastic, and these animals subsequently die due to lack of nutrients. They also can get tangled in this plastic and die from it. This plastic will end up in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, formed by a gyre in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, is an island of micropastics and bigger items.
This diagram is helpful in learning about the garbage patch, what it consists of, and where it comes from, along with other ocean gyres.
This disgusting plastic in the middle of the ocean is gross, big, and not going away for a very, very long time. What can we do about it?
Although we don’t think about it, individuals have an impact. We can recycle, use biodegradable plastics, and just not throw our trash into the ocean. There is an effort starting next year to clean up the Garbage Patch (yay!). You can read about it here.
I am not an expert on the Garbage Patch, so I will link some informational articles and videos below, but I thought it was important to make this post because it is something that affects every single one of us, and that all of us can make efforts to change.
Links:
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“It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.” -Eleanor Roosevelt.
Hi everyone!
Today is Earth Overshoot Day. It is a neutral-sounding name for a rather grim day. Today is the day that us as human beings have used up all of our Earth’s resources for the year. From now until the end of the year, we are essentially in debt to our own mother Earth.
I found a post on WordPress containing a link to find my own ecological footprint. Who doesn’t love online quizzes? They’re like candy for the internet-obsessed.
My results weren’t as environmentally-friendly as I had expected. Although I am making a significant difference by being a vegetarian, my standard Kia Rio where I take to work, the library, the gym, and friends houses almost everyday has caused a looming darkness on my ecological footprint.
If everyone lived like me, we would need 2.7 earths.
Pretty embarrassing to admit, but I will take it in stride. If anything, my disgusting ecological footprint has inspired me to make major lifestyle changes. Although I travel by plane very little (max one round trip/year), I can’t change the fact that my car isn’t very fuel efficient and that I live very far away from the places I frequent the most. Going vegan, turning off lights in rooms I’m not using, etc. can make significant changes although they can seem very little. I am, after all, a student, so I can’t help the type of house my family lives in or the size of it, or the fact that we use electricity.
Living comfortably in a developed nation makes it virtually impossible, but that doesn’t mean that every little effort can still count.
Let’s hope that next year, Earth Overshoot Day is much later than it was this year!
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“It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.” -Eleanor Roosevelt.
Recyclopath 