Week 48 - 9 Green Rules
A year ago I started my Weekly Green Tips Series. A blog post a week containing 7 green tips to give you a year of green tips (with a couple of "Super weeks" containing 21 tips). This post gives you the final 7 tips, a summary of the underlying the messages that have been there throughout this series. We all know the 3 Rs - Reduce, Re-use, Recycle but I would like to take this further and give you the 10 Rs. The 10 green rules to live by.
9 Green Rules to Live by
1. REDUCE
We live in a consumer society where we all buy far more than we need and use too much energy. This level of Western consumption is quite simply unsustainable and the most important step we can all take to help is to reduce how much "stuff" we buy and how much energy we use. Advertising bombards us with the message that we need so many things but we don't and reducing how much stuff we have and energy we consume in our every day life is critical to reducing humanity's impact on our planet. To give you some inspiration here are 100 ways to reduce your plastic use.
2. RE-USE
We need to ditch single use items and switch to quality items that can be re-used time and time again. We are becoming lazy and will happily chuck things away after using them once without so much as a second thought because it is so easy to just buy another one. This is not sustainable.
3. REPAIR
Don't just chuck it because it is broken - so many things are easy to repair.
4. RECYCLE
If something cannot be reused or repaired then recycling is the next best option. But recycling comes with it's own set of environmental problems so where possible always reduce and re-use first. You can read more about the impact of recycling here - A Future for Recycling.
5. RESPECT
If you respect something you will not want to harm it. We all need to have a greater respect for the world that has given us our lives and will give future generations their lives.
6. RESPONSIBLE
We are all responsible for the damage to our world.
It is as simple as that. The pollution and degradation of our wonderful planet is not someone else's problem and we are all responsible. Products we use cause pollution. Our rubbish fills up landfill, breaks down into harmful substances, kills wildlife and our fellow humans. If we want a future for this planet we all have to accept our responsibility for the damage and we all need to become more responsible.
7. REJECT, RE-EVALUATE and REWRITE the RULES
And this is the crux.
We must reject what is seen as normal when in fact it is so damaging, re-evaulate how we live our lives and rewrite a new set of environmental rules to live our lives by.
We must rewrite the Rules.
We will all do anything to protect the ones we love - our friends and family. Now we need to extend that protection to the planet as a whole, for our future family and for their friends. Putting these 9 words put into action means you will help be part of the movement that saves the planet rather than destroys it.
These 9 words have been the backbone of my #WeeklyGreenTips series? To read them all, Click on "Weekly Green Tips" in the labels section in the right hand column.
This way of living reminds me of the time things were rationed. I'm sure if someone was to step out of that time they could teach our generation lots of things. #GoingGreenLinky
ReplyDeleteI agree. My Mum was born just before WWII so she had rationing all through her childhood and teenage years and this "make do and mend" attitude stayed with her all her life ... and may well explain the birth of my desire not to waste chuck stuff or buy stuff I don't really need. Sadly and quite possibly I can understand why, after rationing was finished, so many people really splurged out, having lived under so much austerity for so long and that is now the norm for so many people now.
DeleteWe all most certainly need to do these. I think we do some of them, we definitely could do better though!
ReplyDeleteTruthfully, we could all do better but we all know every great walk starts with one small step ...
DeleteI love all of these! So often people just think recycling is the answer, when really there is so much more we could be doing. Thanks for sharing on the Waste Less Wednesday Blog Hop.
ReplyDelete