With so many accusations flying around of late as to who is at fault for the destruction of the planet, I'd really rather just hear and read about the positive solutions people have to improve things and lighten the load. If we attribute so much power to governments and companies, who are really just groups of people as human as you or I, that they can put all this right, then why don't we attribute that same power to ourselves?

The arguments still rage about global warming and climate change, whether it's real or not, but it's an argument that's getting us nowhere. Recently someone said we'd be better off calling it global pollution and moving on and I had to agree. After all, there's no arguing the things that are before our very eyes and affecting our daily lives. So I wanted to share the first five things I can do or am doing which may actually help alleviate some of these problems rather than trying to put blame on someone else.

#1

Let's start out simple with the plastic bag. It's amazing how these things seem to work there way into our lives despite our best efforts.

Refuse

The biggest way to make an impact is by taking your own fabric bags when you go shopping, so you don't accumulate them every shopping trip. Fabric bags can be thrown in with the regular laundry for cleaning if they get dirty, so you don't need to get worried about hygiene risks with your food shopping. If you have enough you can rotate them so you're only using clean ones for food. If you get light weight ones, you can fold them up in you handbag so they're always with you and you don't have to worry about forgetting them. You can also keep some in the boot of your car, ready to go.

Reuse

Despite having used fabric bags for years, I still seem to accumulate plastic ones. They come in from family members who haven't developed a habit of keeping bags with them. Having bags big enough to carry a fabric shopping bag cramps styles and even remembering to pick up the bag from the boot of the car is hard work! They'll also come from people giving gifts, or shops that automatically put your purchase in a bag despite you saying you have one. So what to do with these? I try to reuse what I can. There are those times when you're taking things to someone and you may not get the bag returned, so a plastic is one you don't mind going. Sometimes it still comes back to me as I get things like empty egg cartons returned or return gifts.

I use them as bin bags, but as I don't produce much waste these days I still find myself with an excess. Each week we prepare fruit at my daughter's gymnastics club and the scraps and leftovers get saved for chickens. It's usually a large amount (it's a big club) and carrier bags are easier than using lots of little produce bags, so I'll take them there to be reused. Sometimes it's my chickens the scraps come back to, so I then have to deal with a mucky, sticky bag afterwards. The easiest is to dry it and use it as a bin liner, rather than using a clean bag for that. Most dirtied plastic bags get used as bin liners here so the clean ones can be used in other ways.

Recycle

When all else fails and the bags overwhelm me, then they reluctantly get gathered together and taken to the soft plastics collection at the local supermarket. There is a risk that these may not get recycled and end up as landfill, but as we have places here in Australia which I know make new products from them, then it's not a big risk.

#2

I ditched most of the cleaning chemicals a long time ago. There's not much that water and elbow grease won't shift and if necessary a bit of vinegar. I do have the remnants of some chemical cleaners that I bought years ago, and they come out on occasions when the afore mentioned things don't work. One is Ajax scouring powder, which comes out for the oven occasionally; much more preferable than the toxic fumes of oven cleaners! It also gets used on our heat resistant, acrylic kitchen counter to polish scratches out. I have an “eco” toilet cleaner which cuts through the scum on the bathroom sinks, baths and showers. I should look into alternatives, now it's running low.

Not buying in cleaners reduces the amount of waste coming in, being produced and it means less toxic chemicals going into the environment.

#3

Rags! They're actually something I've seen used throughout my life. Worn out clothes were turned into rags for cleaning. It doesn't really work very well with synthetic fabrics, but cotton is perfect. My grandmother even used to use her old, giant knickers as rags when she'd worn holes in them. Not really something I'd stretch as far as, personally. So used, was I, to using rags for cleaning, it puzzled me when I discovered that some use paper kitchen towel for that purpose and would go through rolls of it each week. Convenience and hygiene are the reasons given, I believe. Just bin it and it's out of mind and someone else's problem. Yet I don't find it a particular inconvenience to throw dirty rags in the washing machine with the rest of the laundry. I've got to do that laundry anyway.

Aside from not having to constantly waste kitchen towel or cleaning wipes and spending out continually, it ticks a second box of keeping clothing out of landfill for a bit longer.

#4

Being mindful about clothing has made a huge difference to what is moving through my wardrobe. These days, so much clothing barely gets worn, then it's dumped. I now buy most of my clothing second hand and its amazing how much in the charity/thrift/op shops is new or barely worn. One of the things I now ask myself before buying anything is, “will I really wear it?” If it's not comfortable, there isn't anywhere I'm likely to be able to wear it or it looks nicer on the hanger than on me, then it doesn't matter how much I like it, or how much of a bargain it is, it doesn't come home with me. I would rather spend out more on something I know I'll use, than less on something which I won't and will ultimately end up being a waste of money and resources.

#5

Moving on with the subject of second hand, I recently joined a Buy Nothing group on Facebook. Each group covers a certain geographical area in order to keep things local. If you don't have one in your area, then you can start one. The idea is that if you have something you don't need you can offer it up for someone else to use and if you need a particular something, before you go out and buy it you can check if anyone local has one they no longer want.

The world is actually resource rich and the things we need are often the things others have and don't need. Unfortunately, we're not very good at allocating things where they would have more use, so things end up going to landfill which could potentially make someone else's life a whole lot easier. Groups like these, where we can connect with one another, are a huge step towards correcting that issue. If resources were better allocated, then we wouldn't need to produce nearly as much as we currently do.

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We have the power to start making the changes we think will help our planet's ecosystem. What things do you think need to change and what might you be able to do to make that change. Thank you @pennsif for taking the lead and inviting us to do our own Five 4 the Planet.

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