PHOTO CREDIT: FOODANDWATERWATCH.ORG
We all want to do good things for our world.
Sometimes it's hard to get started.
But the day will finally arrive when we start by trying to save our own sanity. When we are unbearably irritated by all the stuff that piles up in our homes and garbage cans, before we have even made their proper acquaintance--plastic bottles, plastic cutlery and plastic packaging for every single nut, bolt and chicken dinner we buy.
Irritation alone will light a fire to your resolve, as will seeing those images of fish swimming through enormous clumps of plastic junk in some idyllic sea.
Changing habits is a slow, steady process, but it will eventually take on momentum. Have you resolved to bring only reusable bags for shopping? I think it took more than a year for us to actually get those bags from the car through the store door most of the time.
At first, we remembered at the checkout.
“Oops!”, we said, looking at each other and shrugging, “Next time!”
That is too easy to do even if you are not wheeling around a couple of pre-schoolers. Their grabby hands and loud inappropriate noises combined with unbearable cuteness can make it a challenge even to gather your few remaining thoughts together to actually pay for your groceries, never mind remembering those bags.
But we can do it!
Take comfort in the fact that it may take the average person up to eight months of daily practice to break a bad habit and replace it with a new one. And then you will be surprised as you find all the other things you can do to live ‘greener’.
We ask ourselves, will what I do really make a difference?
If you do just one thing more beneficial to our world, and others throughout our community and our country do the same, I believe you’ve got a winning strategy.
Need inspiration? Behold the humble plastic bottle.
If you have a one-water-bottle-a-day habit, that’s 365 per year. Throw in one more for leap year. Are there five of you in the family? That’s 1,825 + bottles. Heaped up they would probably fill most of your living room.
World-wide, by next year, humanity will go through about half a trillion plastic bottles—most of them not recycled.
And plastic bags—yikes! Around five trillion of these will be used in a year globally.
But If there are fewer of these items because people are not using them or some savvy manufacturer finds an awesome use for them or an alternative, the harm to our planet will be less.
Maybe saving our beautiful planet isn’t elegant as we start carting our own reusables around and look for alternatives, but we have to start somewhere.
There’s no time like the present.
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