It almost seems like living a sustainable and environmental friendly life and reducing our carbon footprint is trendy now. More and more people are making attempts to go green and live an alternate healthier lifestyle.
Don’t get me wrong, I love the idea! Seeing changes finally being brought to our attentions is a fabulous achievement, but why now? I’ve grown up my entire life, having a conscious about my surroundings and doing my part to help better the planet. I’ve never littered, at least not intentionally and grew up recycling and treating our planet with respect and kindness. It may seem odd to some, but I wander around forested trails and beaches with my tongs, picking up trash, I’ve reduced my need for plastic bags, I recycle anything and everything if possible, and prefer to ride my bike or use public transportation.
Sometimes, I think to myself that one person can’t make a difference, but then sometimes I hope others see Jill and myself picking up trash and that they will follow and so on. If I think about it though, in my lifetime how many bags of trash I’ve collected, how many items I’ve recycled, plastic bags I’ve saved, and how many miles I put on my bike that I otherwise would have driven a car, it adds up. To think if more like minded people followed these simple sustainable practices we could all make a huge difference!
We could all be doing a lot more to live sustainable lives and protect our environment. I could do a lot more myself and plan on changing some of my habits to live a more sustainable life, but here are a few of the practices that Jill and I do consistently both at home and while traveling.
One of the easiest things anyone can do to help out the environment is to pick up trash and dispose of it correctly, whether it be in your surrounding neighborhood or at a beach while on vacation.
There is always trash laying around and to be honest, this will always be the case. Every beach I’ve ever been to has been littered with trash from the beaches in Costa Rica to the shores of Japan.
While living in Japan, Jill and I bring plastic bags with us when we go to the beach and as we are about to leave we walk around and fill a bag of trash, take it home, and recycle the waste properly.
When we lived in Kansas, we purchased those long extended claws or grabbers and a roll of trash bags. At least once every other week we would each grab a bag and walk the Indian Creek Trail near where we lived. We would walk until we’ve filled up the garbage bags and would dispose of the bags in trash can along the trail. We would venture off a bit of the trail sometimes just to get plastics stuck in trees or floating in the water. Unfortunately, every time we did this we would fill up our trash bags with little effort.
One of our favorite trash memories was when I went with my parents and Jill to Exuma in the Bahamas, we rented an Airbnb right on the beach. Each morning my mom, Jill, and myself would each grab a bag and collect trash on the beach we stayed at. So many little plastic bags were collected every morning. Apparently months beforehand a ship sunk and now all the plastics and other material were washing ashore.
Recycle
It’s the twenty-first century, every country around the world should prioritize recycling. Recycling is simple, it is sorting out objects that would otherwise go to waste and using them to create new objects. Why isn’t recycling more popular? Why are some places in the US just now catching on to recycling? I spent a portion of my youth in Germany, and we’ve always recycled, especially glass, plastics, and papers. I feel like in the States, they make such a big deal out of it and charge high prices, which discourages people from recycling, it’s ridiculous.
So many items like reusable bottles can easily be recycled and used for other purposes. We depend on so many resources, eventually we will strip the Earth from everything to the point where nothing will be left, recycling will help reduce the impact we have on Earth.
At first, recycling in Japan seemed way to complex, but after a few months I realized how genius they are when it comes to recycling. First, at home recycling here is pretty strict, we have a dedicated calendar just for recycling showing us what days certain items go out. Twice a week, combustibles are thrown out which are items like food scraps that will be incinerated. Next you have Japanese plastics that are recycled once a week. Glass items can be recycled once a month here. Seems confusing but after a few months it just makes sense. Their recycle centers here are very efficient and clean too!
I remember recycling in Germany, there were designated lots in towns that would have giant bins to sort recycled items. We would separate out different colored glass (brown, clear, and green), cardboard, magazines, cans, etc.. Not quite as organized as Japan, but it worked and was available to anyone.
In the States, you actually have to make quite the effort just to recycle and a lot of people just don’t want to waste their time and money, so they just toss everything in one trash bin.
We can all do more to recycle and we should. Recycling is important and reusing objects is just as important so that we don’t strip the Earth of all her natural features.
Bring Your Own Hand Dry Towel
This one is a no brainer and has never even crossed my mind until living in Japan. When I first got here it was frustrating that every time you wash your hands in public, there would be no paper towels or hand dryers available. I would always wipe my hands dry on my pants and complain about it. Until I realized the Japanese all have their own personal hand drying towels. Think about this, it has been proven that hand dryers in restrooms are responsible for spreading 60 times more bacteria then using a paper towel. Paper towels on the other hand are in fact more sanitary but they cannot be recycled and contribute to about 250 million tons of trash ending up in landfills and cutting down tens of millions of trees, not to mention they are created in factories and then add in the CO2 from transportation.
The Japanese have come up with a brilliant and simple solution, which is a small reusable personal towel. Jill and myself each have a few towels in rotation and they work great! The towels are compact and dry your hands instantly, no need to get extra bacteria on your hands from the blow dryers or waste paper towels.
Biking and Public Transportation
I’ve been living in Japan going on three years now and have lived half the time here without a car. I relied heavily on public transportation for places outside Iwakuni (when I lived there) and prefer to ride my bike any chance I get. Yes, sometimes it can be inconvenient, I’ve transported a 43″ television on my bike, had to make multiple trips to the same store, or have had my panniers and hands full of groceries. But I always look at these four things while riding my bike. First, it is a great form of exercise, you are not contributing to pollution like vehicles are, maintaining a bike is much less then vehicle maintenance (gas, oil changes, tire rotations, etc..), and it contributes to a lot less traffic on the roadway and opens up parking spaces for others.
Public Transportation is much better in some places compared to other parts of the world and is a great solution to get a mass amount of people from Point A to Point B. So instead of one hundred people driving to their destination all in various types of vehicles, public transportation uses one mode for all those people. Sure, it still contributes to pollution and other concerns but at a much lower rate then everyone driving individual vehicles. For the most part, public transportation is timely and departs on a daily schedule so it is generally consistent.
Here is Japan, one can take a train almost throughout the entire country, same goes for Europe. I hope that someday the United States builds a reliable and affordable rail system. Lets be serious, the Amtrak is a joke, it’s slow and expensive. America has the space, so why not make a bullet train that links all major cities at an affordable cost? I guarantee people will use it!
Reusable Bags and Water bottles
Single-use plastics are a huge threat to the environment, in my opinion they should be banned. Single-use plastics are items like water bottles, plastic bags, straws, coffee cup lids, etc.. these items are intended to be used only once before being thrown out. A lot of trash you see along the road is single-use plastics. They end up in our streams which ends up in rivers, eventually being carried out to the ocean. Through the erosion of the plastic, it will break down into smaller and smaller pieces and that is where the problems occur. Marine wildlife will often mistake these tiny plastics for their natural food sources and consume these plastics. Their bodies are unable to digest plastics ultimately leading to their deaths, all because we as humans are to lazy to throw away or recycle these items.
Purchasing bottled water is pointless anyway, it’s normal water you can get from home, bottled, packaged, and sold. Why not use a nice reusable bottle? Hydro Flask and Nalgene makes great thick reusable bottles. I’ve had my Nalgene bottle for years and use it on every trip. Jill has a Hydro Flask that is insulated and keeps her beverages cold even during hot summer days.
My friend Agi from the website karma.style, has an excellent post on repurposing plastic water bottles. She even shares great tips and creative DIY projects you can do with those plastic bottles that need to be recycled. You can read her post Stop Using Plastic Bottles, to learn more about what creative things we can do to replace plastic bottles. If your plastic bottles can’t be recycled, might as well get creative and put them to good use, right?
Next to water bottles, plastic bags are a big problem and should be banned. You see the remnants of plastic bags everywhere, stuck on tree branches, floating down rivers, caught on storm drains, basically everywhere! Many states have banned the use of plastic bags and many stores no longer sell them or charge a fee to use them. The easiest solution to this is to purchase a reusable bag. We’ve had reusable bags for years and continue to use them, they are much more reliable and sturdier then plastic bags, have fun designs on them, and come in all shapes and sizes.
Please Look After Our Planet
Somewhere on Social Media, I read a post that said “It’s not my trash, but it is my planet” and had two photos of an individual sitting on the beach. The first image was him surrounded by trash all along the beach, the second picture was him sitting in the same spot with about 50 bags full of trash behind him. I wish we all had this same mentality, I even find myself guilty of things and know I can always do more. Instead of walking by a plastic bag on the ground, why not pick it up and fill it with trash and toss it in a nearby trash can. You would be surprised by how satisfying that feeling is, knowing that you did something good for the environment.
This list of how we contribute to the environment is easy and can be achieved by anyone. Make it a goal to start small and help out in any way possible, because it is important and if we all contribute in our own ways, the Earth will thank us all, trust me!
