ORLANDO, Fla. (Ivanhoe Newswire)– Grocery bags, clothes, and even your produce can have an impact on climate change. Something as simple as the cotton shirt you’re wearing may be hurting the environment. According to the New York Times, making one shirt uses more water than a single person drinks in a year. So, what are five ways you can help the environment?
The effects can be felt worldwide. But the more evidence we see, the more we ignore.
Leslie Poole, an Environmental Professor explains, “There’s even a term for it, ecological overload. Getting comfortably numb because we feel ineffective.”
What can you do to become “effective”? Start small with grocery bags, but which is better for your household? Cotton bags need to be reused 131 times, paper bags three times, and plastic only once if they are properly recycled to reduce their emissions. ‘Fast fashion’ is mass-producing new items at rapid speed, by 2030, 134 million tons of textiles are expected to be thrown out per year.
Poole recommended that, “Another student quit buying clothes; she went to the thrift shop.”
And what about your food consumption? Forty percent of food produced in the U.S. is rejected by supermarkets annually. Companies like ‘Misfit Market’ and ‘Imperfect Foods’ are selling misshapen or bruised produce for up to a 40 percent off grocery store prices.
Travel is another leading contributor to carbon emissions. However, you can offset your carbon footprint by donating to programs that are focused on reducing emissions. Sites like ‘The Gold Standard’ and ‘Green-E’ calculate how much money each person needs to give to “pay back” the toll they take on the environment.
Contributor(s) to this news report include: Danielle Gober, Producer; Robert Walko, Videographer and Editor. To receive a free weekly email on Smart Living from Ivanhoe, sign up at: http://www.ivanhoe.com/ftk