12 Things You Can Do to Help Save Our Planet

Our planet holds wonders beyond imagining, both discovered and undiscovered. From the deepest recesses of the great oceans to the unseen heart of our sprawling jungles. However, the damage that we are causing means that so many of these incredible natural wonders are disappearing before our very eyes and often being destroyed before they are even discovered. As much as the damage done will be hard to undo, there is still so much that we can do to get our planet back on track.

So, here are a few ideas that you can put into action to help protect the environment and save our planet, getting it back on track and restoring its lost beauty.

1. Be Political and Keep Talking

Take the issue straight to the top and let your efforts influence your political impact. Climate change and environmental loss are becoming greater issues on the political level, which means policies are starting to address these issues more and more. This is great news because we can now choose to vote for these policies and help put them into action. What’s more, you can spread the word yourself by word of mouth or digitally and help move these issues into the public eye.

2. Travel Responsibly

Cars are a massive contributor to pollution all over the world. But fear not, it’s so easy to cut down on our daily emissions just by taking a few simple steps. Firstly, where you can, you should try walking or cycling to work, beneficial not just to the environment but it can have a great effect on your health. Public transport is also a much more sustainable way of travelling. Should you need to drive, why not lift share, and immediately cut your fossil fuel consumption in half?

3. Donate

With the huge number of charities and organisations out there striving to support and rejuvenate our planet, it is so easy to find a cause worthy of your donation. Your donations don’t have to be massive, a donation of as little as £20 can fund blood samples from a polar bear that will provide crucial evidence to help in persuading the government to start taking action to tackle climate change.

4. Volunteer

Find a local cause that you can get behind and offer up some of your time to help in their efforts. You can use sites like environment job to find the best volunteering opportunities for you.

5. Reduce, Re-use, Recycle

There are loads of small steps that you can take to reduce the amount of waste you produce. Reusing as much as you can is a great way of cutting down on waste; something as simple as keeping hold of empty jam jars to use for storage in the future. And for those things that just can’t be reused, recycle where you can, let them be broken down and remade into something else instead of sending them off to landfill. Or why not start at the source and simply reduce the amount you buy, get smart with your purchasing, and find ways to cut down on the things you don’t need. And don’t forget recycling doesn’t just have to be putting it in the recycling bin, often, things that you least expect can still have value and it can be easier than you think to capitalise on. Take books for example, use WeBuyBooks to sell your books at the click of a button, or check out eBay or Amazon to sell all manner of item from clothing to cars.

6. Compost

We have all done it at some point, thrown away the leftovers or scraps from the last meal. Well, instead of throwing it in the bin for it to end up releasing harmful gasses and poisonous leachates in landfill, start your own compost and let all that organic material break down naturally.

7. Be Energy Efficiency

Take steps to become more energy efficient in the home. Reducing your energy bill may seem like a daunting task but it’s much easier than you might think. Simple day-to-day habits like switching to energy saver lightbulbs, turning plugs and light switches off and insulating your home can have a huge impact on both your carbon footprint and can significantly reduce your bill. Another option is always switching energy provider to a company that relies more on renewable energy sources over fossil fuels.

8. Do Your Research

If you are reading this blog, then you are already well on your way to achieving this one. One of the best ways to find out how you can make a difference is to get to the cause of the issues we face and develop a deeper understanding of what needs to be done. For example, did you know that humans have wiped out around 90% of the ocean’s apex predators in just 55 years, this includes fish like sharks, marlin and swordfish? Knowing this kind of information could help you and others make more educated decisions on what you eat or where you buy from. Do some digging and peer past the veil to motivate your greener choices.

9. Avoid Fast Fashion

Emitting around 1.2 billion (1,200,000,000) tonnes of carbon dioxide each year, the fashion industry and its supply chain is the world’s third largest polluting industry and fast fashion is a huge contributor to this. Fast fashion, put simply, is a highly profitable and exploitative business template that often implements inhumane and environmentally damaging methods to mass produce low-quality clothing for a perpetually changing market. Because of the incredibly short lifespan of these clothes, consumers are forced to constantly buy new items leading to a huge sustainability issue. Where you can, try buying sustainably made clothing and clothing made to a higher quality to reduce the necessity to buy new, or simply just reuse or rehome clothes.

10. Eat Responsibly

The food industry contributes around 26% of the globe's greenhouse gas emissions, so it’s fair to say that it’s an area for us to work on. Making a difference is much easier than you might think. By simply updating your food consumption to a greener, more sustainable menu can go a long way. Eating responsibly doesn’t just mean eating greener, it can mean cutting down on food that uses lots of packaging, batch cooking food can reduce your waste and the amount of energy you use, or simply just not running the tap until you find the optimal drinking temperature.

11. Divest Your Pension Away From Fossil Fuel Investments

Divest your pension and any other potential investments away from fossil fuels and reinvest your assets into renewable energy. Join big names such as one of the world’s largest pension funds – ABP, which is set to stop investing funds into fossil fuels by the first quarter of 2023. By taking your assets away from the non-sustainable fossil fuel sector you will be directly contributing to a much-needed switch to a renewable future.

12. Plant Trees

It’s as simple as it sounds, get your hands dirty and put a tree in the ground. Single handily fight climate change by planting a tree, and as it grows from a sapling to a fully-fledged tree it will absorb more and more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere creating a cleaner, healthier air.

So, that concludes the list of 12 things that you can do to help the environment. We hope this helped and for more tips and tricks on how to live more sustainably, visit WeBuyBooks and check out some of our other blogs.