Climate change and mass pollution aren’t your fault, no matter how many plastic forks you buy or how many plane rides you take in a year. However, if you’re interested in doing your small part to try to help keep things green, here are some products you can avoid to be a bit more environmentally friendly.
Plastic Forks
Plastic forks (and spoons, and knives, and straws) are all awful for the environment because they’ll basically never break down. They’re only disposable because they’re inexpensive to produce, not because they’re fragile. In fact, plastic has so much longevity that it’ll probably remain in landfills all over the world for the rest of human history.
Styrofoam Cups
Styrofoam cups, like plastic flatware, are here forever. Every Styrofoam cup you’ve ever drank from is probably still hanging out in a landfill somewhere, having not broken down even a bit from the passage of time. Styrofoam and plastic are unnatural, lab-made materials that simply sit outside the normal cycle of nature and aren’t consumed by any living things.
Paper Towels
Paper towels waste extremely valuable forest resources and are largely unnecessary. They’re not as bad for the environment as plastic flatware, but they’re needless when you have access to things like washrags and dishcloths that you can simply wash and reuse multiple times instead of throwing them away after a single use.
Tea Bags
Everyone loves a good cup of tea, but you should consider ditching the traditional teabags. There are plenty of great reusable options, from metal filters to silicone dippers. These are great for the environment, as they keep the water-soluble disposable teabags from clogging up landfills.
Bleached Coffee Filters
Bleached coffee filters are similar to paper towels in that they take up lumber resources. Also, since they’ve been bleached white, they might be bad for your health and for the groundwater in the area around the landfill they’ll end up in. That bleach can cause damage to living things, whether that’s you or the wildlife in the area near the landfill.
Bottled Water
You don’t need bottled water. Read that sentence and then read it again. If you live in an area with poor tap water quality, consider getting a water filter, or a reusable bottle with a filter. Bottled water is as superfluous as possible. Simply clean glasses or reusable bottles and stop buying plastic bottles destined to end up in landfills.
Internal Combustion Engine Cars
There’s no two ways about this: cars that burn gasoline are bad for the environment. You can talk about EV’s using fossil fuels that power the local power grid, or how mining for heavy metals to go into batteries is bad for the environment. And, sure! Those things are already happening, though. Gasoline is just for cars, and collecting crude oil is one of the biggest contributors to climate change. Just get an EV or start taking the bus, okay?
Almond Milk
Almond milk tastes great, but harvesting enough almonds to meet demand takes up a ton of farmland. Almonds are also very thirsty plants, so they take in a lot of water just to yield a small amount of almond milk. If you’re looking for milk substitutes, consider switching to coconut milk or oat milk, which are somewhat more sustainable.
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Red Meat
Yes, this point has been talked to death, and, yes, it’s still true. Raising red meat like beef and lamb is really bad for the environment. We’re sorry! Yes, hamburgers and steaks are good, and no, no one is saying we should ban red meat outright. But do you think you could eat a bit less red meat to help reduce demand and lighten the load for the environment? A bit of restraint could go a long way.
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Fast Fashion
Do you really need a brand-new wardrobe every season? Not to sound too much like a hermit, but I’ve been wearing pretty much the same clothes since I left high school and I get actively uncomfortable when I think about disposing of clothes that still fit me. If your clothes are in good condition and still fit you, maybe you don’t need to go buy a brand-new assortment of threads?
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