How to Save the Planet: 9 Tips for You

Plant a Tree

Yes, we plant a tree on Earth Day. But then that’s it, isn’t it? A one-day activity which relieves your guilt for the rest of the year about not doing anything to save the world? It’s grade 5 science – trees provide us with Oxygen, provide homes for wildlife, fight pollution, prevent soil erosion.... and the list is endless. So why would you stop at planting just one tree?

Make it a weekly habit. Form a group of enthusiastic volunteers and go to areas where you have permission or don’t require it to plant trees.

Don’t Litter

All that you need are disposable gloves, an eco-friendly trash bag, and the willingness to clean your neighbourhood. Not only is it a good activity from a point of view of cleanliness and health, you would also be saving hundreds of animals like racoons who routinely end up eating non edible items like plastic and thus choking themselves. For those of you dreaming bigger, organize events to clean up your local parks or beaches.

And when you’re done with this, you can……

Recycle

How to save the planet? Do recycle! Apart from the obvious benefits, recycling also:

• Helps create awareness via ripple effects, especially if communities or groups of people (like students) are involved in recycling.

• Reduces energy consumption.

• Helps preserve our natural resources, because by recycling items like paper, we reduce the demand of more paper, which, in turn, directly means lesser trees being cut down for paper.

• Helps reduce the problem of ever increasing landfills.

• Decreases pollution which comes from various places like landfills, factories producing non-recyclable content, etc.

• Reduces toxic E-Waste, and so much more!

Make Advantage of Composting

This is a very fortunate side effect of recycling. All organic material which decomposes quickly is better used as compost, especially if it’s in small enough quantities. Not only will you be making use of the 3 Rs: reducing (waste), reusing (organic material) and recycling, but also will be saving money. This is because a compost pit drastically reduces the need of using chemical fertilizers, as well as watering the soil.

Buy Local Food

If you’re the lazy type who does not like doing a lot of physical work to save the planet, then you could simply switch the place where you buy your food. Buying from supermarkets and big corporations means paying and being responsible of the transportation of foods over long distances. This in turn emits hundreds pounds of greenhouse gasses. Not to mention the fact that local food is higher in nutritional value, as well as the fact that you’d be supporting local groups instead of mega-rich people.

Use Cycles or Public Transport

Sure, cars are fancy and fuel your ego, but if you are thinking of how to save the planet, then ditch that environmental monster and opt for something more eco-friendly. Biking, of course, is a zero carbon activity which also keeps you fit and healthy. But for those who can't ride a bike, make use of public transport. They’re going to run whether or not you use them, so why not try to save some money by using the public transport.

Switch Light Bulbs

Come on! You already know by now that CFLs, LEDs or even halogens are better for your electricity bill. So why not make the switch? Or, of course, if you want to do something on a grander scale, you could always use solar power.

Reduce Plastic Products

Plastic is practically poisonous to the earth – it isn’t biodegradable, it doesn’t decompose and most commercial plastic cannot even be recycled safely for reuse. And when burnt (to get rid of the mounds of plastic collecting in our landfills), they produce toxic fumes. Not to mention that plastic is killing the ocean and its inhabitants (Just google it). For instance, bottled water factories produce an unimaginably high amount of CO2 and waste a lot of precious oil to manufacture those bottles. Want to know how to save the planet? Do your fair share by saying no to bottled water and other disposable plastic products.

Give Up Animal Products

Roll your eyes as much as you want, but there’s simply no denying the impact a life free of animal produce has on the environment. Don’t believe us? Have a look below:

• You save water: 70% of our freshwater resources are put into growing food for animals up for slaughter, or given to them to drink. Picture this – 1 kilo of beef can use thousands of liters of water to produce, while a kilo of wheat only uses a max of 1500 litres to grow.

• You save food: Do you know that 70% of the food grown in America is fed to... animals, instead of, you know, feeding the homeless, hungry and poor.

• Lesser air pollution: Leather, honey, wool, fur, and meat – these industries cause more air pollution than all cars, buses, planes, ships and other modes of transportation in the world combined. Put things into a new perspective, doesn’t it?

• Lesser global warming: Humans today eat twice the amount of animals they did 3 decades ago – 230 MILLION tonnes. Where do you suppose all of that methane, greenhouse gases and waste go to?

• When you say no to animal produce, you’re also saying no to deforestation, oceanic pollution of animal waste, etc.

Note

The list goes on and on. Some ways of how to save the planet require physical effort, time and energy (like volunteering or doing cleanup drives), while others can easily be performed without much effort (like not buying bottled water or saying no to meat and dairy). Ultimately, it’s up to you to decide how you want to make your planet a better world to live in for the future generations.