Giving Back To Our Environment
It’s the Holiday season and the time for giving back, so how can we give back to our environment?
There are several easy ways to reduce, reuse, and recycle in our day-to-day life.
To reduce waste, bring your reusable coffee mugs to your coffee shop. Coffee cups are covered in a chemical called polyethylene which keeps your drink warm but is unable to be recycled. About 16 billion paper cups are made every year, resulting in about 6.5 million trees being cut down! Not only will using a reusable coffee mug save the environment but will also give you a small discount. Remember to bring your coffee mug to your favorite coffee shop!
Styrofoam is one of the most harmful materials to the planet! Styrofoam is light and can blow easily in the wind so little particles can get anywhere from streams, roads, and the ocean. It even makes up 10 to 40 percent of litter in rivers and streams! More than 50 chemical byproducts are released into the air when manufacturing Styrofoam. Chronic exposure to these harmful chemicals can cause depression, headaches, fatigue, weakness, hearing loss, and disrupted kidney function. Also, Styrofoam is not biodegradable and takes from 500 to a million years to decompose. So why do we use this harmful product almost daily? Styrofoam is used for to-go boxes at restaurants, packing peanuts, coffee cups, surfboards, home insulation, and more. A great way to stop using Styrofoam is to bring reusable food containers to restaurants. The fewer people who buy this horrible product, the fewer companies will manufacture it. So remember to stop using Styrofoam!
Newspapers are commonly thrown away, but there are so many ways that you can reuse them! You can fold or roll them up and weave them together to create beautiful bowls or baskets. You can also make trays, and coasters, and use them for crafts, painting and even cleaning! Sprinkle some essential oils on them and put them at the bottom of your garbage can to give an overall better scent! There are several ways to reuse old materials like newspapers!
Another material that you can reuse is toilet paper rolls or paper towel rolls. You can use the cardboard centers to create amazing decorations! You can make gift boxes, artwork, flowers, and much more! Reusing these can create several fun activities and cute art pieces!
Numerous benefits come from recycling. When we recycle, we reduce the need to mine for natural materials. When we mine for materials such as concrete, glass, metals, and more, we create lots of pollution in the air and water. You can recycle plastic bottles, paper, cardboard, tin, aluminum, glass, and more! But be sure not to recycle plastic stretch wrap, egg cartons, take-out containers, drinking cups, plastic utensils, and fast food packaging! Recycling is extremely important and beneficial to our society, so keep recycling!
Now it’s time we give back to our environment! Keep reducing, reusing, and recycling throughout the new year! Happy Holidays from Weekend Maids – we hope you have an amazing 2020!