What do you do to help the environment?

[Tommy]

Are you actively doing something to help the environment?

 

I feel like I should do more. There's these clean up sessions where you meet up with a bunch of strangers and clear the litter out of parks etc. I thought of joining those. 

 

I used to be pretty bad in the past, but I try to do better in the last few years. 

- I try not to throw away any food.

- I use cloth bags for years whenever I go grocery shopping. Haven't used a plastic bag for, I'd say a decade. 

- I recycle my garbage, and try to avoid plastic as good as I can. Like when I buy vegetables or fruits, I just buy  them loose instead of using those little plastic bags.

- I have bee hotels and bee friendly flowers in the garden. 

- I reduced my meat consumption and I only eat meat once or twice a week, but I make sure the animals had a decent housing (they actually have to mark the packaging here in Germany now).

 

 

[nudge]

The usual stuff. Recycling, avoiding single-use plastics, walking or using public transportation whenever possible, etc. I've been quite frugal for years when it comes to buying stuff (food, clothes, random things), so there's that, but I don't think I actively do anything that directly affects environment in a positive way. Would love to be more involved, but with something that actually matters. Something like wildlife conservation, ideally.

[Tommy]

11 minutes ago, nudge said:

 walking or using public transportation whenever possible, etc

Yea, I wanted to list that as well, but not having a drivers license helps. 

[Spike]

I recycle mainly. I avoid single use items, maybe it was just my upbringing so I was never exposed to it but I was immediately impressed with how much single use items that are used in America and how many people use things like paper towels instead of rags or cloths. Even people using paper plates to eat instead of ceramic is insane! A co-worker was telling me that when he was growing up his family would buy single use thimble cups for rinsing out their mouths after brushing their teeth instead of just cupping their hand.

I usually ask for things like my coffee in a ceramic but cafe don't really like doing that, it's frustrating.

[Spike]

I avoid palm oil, and when I do buy products that use palm oil I make sure it is 'certified'. The certification of palm oil is probably fucking balls but it's better than Nestle ploughing down another rainforest on Sumatra so they can emulsify the fat and cocoa in Nutella. The more I think about it the more I'll be able to post in this thread.

I drive a hybrid, which depending on the vehicle and energy grid are better for the environment that EVs.

I avoid wasting food.

I don't buy a lot of clothes and try to wear them till I cannot. I try to avoid plastic clothes as well, but it's hard to do that,

[Stan]

Recycling, mainly. 

Try not to waste food and only buy from the shops what we specifically need, as opposed to bulk or stockpiling. 

No big retailers use plastic carrier bags anymore. It's all 'bags for life' but you have to pay for them, which encourages re-use anyway. 

[CaaC (John)+]

The wife is the one for all that and I just follow what she does really, we have separate bins outside for grass cuttings, bottles, waste paper, etc or general rubbish and food waste that the council empty on a 2-week basis, we only buy what we need every month in, on-line shopping from either Tesco's or Iceland.

The wife concentrates on the fridge and freezer when they need de-frosting and I will keep an eye on the wine cooling cabinet and make sure that is defrosted whenever needed.

Shopping wise we have a few cloth and heavy plastic bags with handles that we only use for shopping and won't buy plastic bags, in our kitchen we have a separate bin for waste and a bin for paper, etc.

We have a gardener that calls every 2 weeks for the grass or hedge cutting and we will pay him extra for removing the cuttings, with my health problems (asthma, COPD, sciatica) I can't go near the garden in the summer time as anybody cutting laws, etc sets me off sneezing and breathing problems.

[Azeem]

I remain poor

[Dr. Gonzo]

I've got a hybrid Corolla, I try to avoid buying sun-grown coffee beans & use a reusable coffee filter for my coffee making carafe thing, I recycle & compost my green waste and food waste, I've used cloth bags at grocery stores for years, I avoid using single use plastics whenever possible, I hate buying clothes so I do that as little as possible and wear what I have until it starts falling apart. When I get rid of shit I don't use, first I look to see if I can repurpose them in any way - if I can't I'll try to sell it and if nobody buys it, I'll donate it.

[Carnivore Chris]

Scrap metal

[Devil]

2 hours ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

I've got a hybrid Corolla, I try to avoid buying sun-grown coffee beans & use a reusable coffee filter for my coffee making carafe thing, I recycle & compost my green waste and food waste, I've used cloth bags at grocery stores for years, I avoid using single use plastics whenever possible, I hate buying clothes so I do that as little as possible and wear what I have until it starts falling apart. When I get rid of shit I don't use, first I look to see if I can repurpose them in any way - if I can't I'll try to sell it and if nobody buys it, I'll donate it.

@Dr. Gonzo wins the Greta Thurnburg award on the forum.

 

[Honey Honey]

Together we put our recycling in the correct council bin, use tote bags and check what's in shampoo

Fuck me it's over isn't it.

 

[Viva la FCB+]

Im far too wasteful, consume too much, drive 2 cars (one gas burner), buy too much shit. Yeah I dont do my part at all. I do recycle though 

One good thing they finally did here was stop all of the major stores giving away plastic bags. They now charge you and for paper bags. We've kind of always used reuseable bags though anyways. Actually another good thing of being nearly married to a Filipino is they always send a large box of shit back to the Philippines every other month or so, I usually contribute stuff I dont need or clothes I dont wear etc. but that just means I get to replace it with new stuff... maybe this is a net neutral. 

[Dr. Gonzo]

23 hours ago, Devil said:

@Dr. Gonzo wins the Greta Thurnburg award on the forum.

 

Tbf much of these decisions were made based off me being a cheap arsehole rather than an environmentalist: I bought the hybrid Corolla because it was cheap and would keep my petrol costs down. I'll get fined for not putting shit in the right bins in my new neighborhood  - although I'd use the bins correctly whether or not I'd get fined, but avoiding fines is a pretty good incentive to keep me actively thinking about what rubbish goes where! Cloth bags at stores because now they don't give out bags for free where I'm at and as mentioned before... I'm cheap. Hating buying clothes is based on me just hating going to shops and trying shit on more than the environment tbh - although I tend to put my cheapness aside when I buy clothes and buy nicer shit... that's because it doesn't fall apart as quickly and I can wear them for much longer (which I'm pretty sure saves me money in the long run).

The coffee decision is purely based off me liking animals and sun-grown coffee being a huge source of deforestation in Africa and South America & increases the risk of more cool animals being made endangered/extinct. Same with repurposing shit I don't use anymore or trying to sell/donate it - it just seems unnecessarily wasteful to send shit that still can serve some useful purpose to landfills that already have so much crap because we're in the era of cheap shit being easy to make and buy and consumer culture is thriving in a lot of parts of the world.

I think I'm probably more kind to my wallet than I am to the environment in the long run. I do think it's important that individuals are environmentally conscious because we've only got one planet and we can all play a little part in keeping it from being a disgusting shithole full of rubbish. But at the same time, more meaningful change would come from big businesses being made to consider their impact on the environment. As individuals we play a part in what happens to the environment, but it's just a tiny fraction of what big industries could be doing better to help the planet.

You also need to have the economic means to be able to make decisions that are environmentally conscious - like I'm fine with spending a bit more on my coffee beans for my morning cups of coffee because I made that environmental decision. If it were 10 or 15 years ago, even if I wanted to be environmentally conscious about what kind of coffee beans I'm buying... I don't think I'd be able to afford to. And if I have a kid in the near future, I also don't think I'll be able to afford to keep doing that because I'll need to cut costs when and where I can. Some people think they can/should shame others into thinking more about their impact on the environment, but we live in an expensive world that seems to just get more and more expensive - you can't shame someone into spending money on stuff to make the world marginally better when they've got bills to pay and a family to take care of stretching them financially.

[Spike]

Another is using non-toxic sunscreen when I swim.

[Toinho]

I’m not as good as I should be in this regard. 
 

My sister lives in essentially a self sustainable tiny house and never uses plastic etc etc. How she lives is very impressive. 
 

One good thing about Australia or WA at least is the single use plastic changes and plastic bag usage etc, single use plastic bags were gone a few years ago. 
 

 

[Spike]

1 hour ago, Toinho said:

I’m not as good as I should be in this regard. 
 

My sister lives in essentially a self sustainable tiny house and never uses plastic etc etc. How she lives is very impressive. 
 

One good thing about Australia or WA at least is the single use plastic changes and plastic bag usage etc, single use plastic bags were gone a few years ago. 
 

 

That’s nationwide cobber.

[Toinho]

6 minutes ago, Spike said:

That’s nationwide cobber.

Excellent. 

[Spike]

17 minutes ago, Toinho said:

Excellent. 

Thanks mate.