Celebrating Earth Day is Useless

Celebrating Earth Day is useless if there is no Earth celebrating for in the future.

Have you heard of the recent news stories about (Northern White, Sumatran, Black) Rhinos, (Tapanuli) Orangutans, (Malayan and Sumatran) Tigers, (Sumatran) Elephants, (Hawksbill) Sea Turtles, or even (Western) Chimpanzees being close to extinction? There is an article by John Wenz and Popular Mechanics Editors, in an article last April 8, 2019, about the 24 endangered animals.

Have you also watched the one of the episodes from Netflix's "Our Planet" wherein walruses were climbing rock cliffs (instead of icebergs). This episode created buzz in the online community because instead of them slipping or sliding down from the slippery ice, they fell from the rocks they climbed resulting to deaths due to the impact from falling.

Are you aware of the billions of plastic waste floating in our oceans and seas? Did you know that everyday we worsen this condition because we use single-use plastics everyday? Two of the results of this type of pollution are: some marine animals tend to eat them and some are being trapped. Do we still want to add the number of plastics in our waters?

Everyday we make both small and big decisions on how we live our lives. Everyday we wake up in the morning not knowing these things happen because we don't see or hear them, thus we don't really know if these are truly happening. The real question is, can we really not see the effects in our own community? Haven't we heard any first-hand news from the people we know who are affected by these environmental events?

How can we celebrate Earth Day in the next years if there is no Earth to celebrate? If we really care about the planet we live in, let's start by making small steps to help preserving what are left. How can we do this? Here are some small ways we can do in our homes, schools, offices, or communities:

1. Turn off all lights we do not use. Switch off and unplug appliances we do not use as well.

   
Photos from armstrongeconomics.com and pep.ph

2. Walk or ride a bicycle instead of riding a taxi or booking an Uber or Grab just to take you to places. 500-meter walks won't hurt you. In fact, it exercises your body. Just make sure you follow pedestrian and traffic rules.

3. Carpool with your friends or officemates instead of driving your own car or booking an Uber. Not only it unclogs heavy traffic, it also minimises carbon emissions.

Photo from zify.com

4. If you own a car, get your carbon emission checked. Make sure the carbon emitted adheres to the safety standard.

Photo from grist.org

5. Bring your own tumblers to your travels or your reusable cups in your workplace. Veer away from plastic cups.

6. Bring reusable bags. If you prefer convenience by not adding another item in your bag or carrying it around with you, you can put the reusable bag in your car or store one in your office, and just bring the bag if you need to buy something.

7. Bring your own cutlery set everywhere you eat at. It's more hygenic and you don't need to use single-use plastic cutleries! 

 

8. Bring what you can eat. Avoid spoilage of food. Carbon footprints are also produced from the production  of most food in the market.

Photo from netdoctor.com

9. Instead of using plastic straws, drink from the cup directly. Or if you really need to drink using a straw, invest in buying a bamboo straw or a metal straw.

Photo from girlsthatscuba.com

10. Conserve water by using less. Close taps or faucets properly. Fix leaking taps or faucets, pipes, and toilets.


Photo from countingcoins.co.za

We may be used to doing our old ways but trying to replace old habits can be a big factor in conserving what we have left. Let your zero waste journey be one of your life goals, so that the future generation will still be able to experience the wondrous things Mother Earth gives us.

|| "We don't need a handful of people doing zero waste perfectly, we need millions of people doing it imperfectly. - Anne-Marie Bonneau (@ZeroWasteChef)" ||