31 DAYS TO MAKE THE WORLD A BETTER PLACE

Over the last 31 days, we have explored many ways to make the world a better place, starting off with Plastic Free July. Here’s a recap: Day 1: Pop a reusable shopping bag in your handbag and car – and ditch single-use shopping bags for good. Sign the Greenpeace petition calling for the NZ Government to ban the bag here

Day 2: Refuse plastic straws, which end up in our ocean and cause a major risk to marine life. If you must use a straw, switch to paper, or even better, purchase a reusable stainless steel straw that you take with you. Day 3: Take your own coffee/beverage cup wherever you go, and support businesses that encourage their customers to do so. Most coffee cups are not recyclable or compostable in home compost systems. The lids, however, are usually recyclable. But refusing these disposable items is the best option! Day 4: Stop buying bottled water. Especially in NZ, and in many other countries around the world, tap water is at least as good as, if not better, than bottled water. Plus you’ll have a major impact upon reducing waste. Many plastic bottles end up at sea, where they contribute to the growing rubbish gyres of plastic circulating in our oceans and choking our wildlife.

Day 5: Switch from cling wrap (Saran wrap/Glad Wrap etc) to beeswax wraps. Further cutting down your plastic use. Remember that plastic contains petrochemicals, so by reducing plastic use, you are also reducing your demand for mining of oil, as well as reducing the amount of plastic going into landfill. In some countries, and in parts of NZ, there is a soft plastic recycling scheme, so if you do use soft plastics, do recycle them wherever possible. Check out your local metropolitan waste regulations, or in NZ, Click here

In August, we moved on to the 7 R’s of a Circular Economy to cut down resource use, waste, and extend product life cycles. We also passed Earth Overshoot Day on the 2nd August 2017! Since then, we are using resources that should have been saved for next year – a bit like living off the principal of an investment – eventually you’ll end up with nothing left!

Day 6: Re-use products until the end of their life cycle. Maybe this will include some very cool upcycling project. Check out Pinterest for inspiration. Day 7: Repair and mend products rather than replace them. There are some great workshops teaching long-lost skills of tool maintenance, bike repair and sewing starting up again. Gain great skills, save money, and know that you are reducing landfill waste and the demand for new materials. Day 8: Re-gift products. If you’re finished with something, it doesn’t mean that someone else won’t see the beauty or benefit of an item. Donate to charity, upcycle products, share excesses with community. Day 9: Recover. Before you dispose or recycle an item, recover what you can. For example, parts of an old t-shirt you may be able to turn into cloth ‘paper towels’ or rags. Maybe a beautiful piece of lace on a shirt can be used to uplift a plain top. An old bike might still have parts that are useful to others who need replacement or spare parts. Get online, talk to your community, pop items on to a local Pay It Forward page, and share the resources. Day 10: Recycle. If you have followed all the previous steps, the next stage is to recycle. As mentioned, check out your local metropolitan waste facility for more information about what can be recycled and how. Food waste in the developed world is the underlying cause for hunger elsewhere. We produce enough food to feed the world, but the distribution of the food is a major problem. From Day 11, we started to explore how we can reduce food waste (and save money in the process).

Day 11: Start a Food Waste diary and for a week, keep a tally of all food, including scraps from lunchboxes and dinner plates, peelings and stalks etc that are thrown out (or put into compost, bokashi, or your worm farm). Day 12: The world wastes approximately 1/3 of all the food that is produced, which amasses to 1.3 billion tons of food, worth more than $1.3 billion Click for more. Start to analyse what you’re throwing away. Day 13: Planning your meals and shopping trips is one of the best way to reduce food waste. Keeping to a list helps prevent buying items that you don’t really need. By planning to use what you already have on hand first, you can help reduce waste, and save a lot of money! Look for planning tools, coming soon. Day 14: Use your leftovers to save money. Store your leftovers safely, and use them to create new dishes. Get creative! Allocate at least once a week to use up leftovers. Alternatively take leftovers for lunches, or keep them in the freezer for use when you’re going to be in a rush. There are also uses for almost everything, from onion skins to celery leaves. Day 15: Learn how to tell if food is still safe to eat, the shelf life of products, what ‘best before’ dates and ‘use by’ dates really mean. Also storage tips to extend shelf life. Here’s a great resource, thanks to Love Food Hate Waste NZ: Storage tips

Day 16: Share excess food to prevent food waste. There are a lot of organisations and groups that will help you to do this, including the old-fashioned way of meeting your neighbour, which is great for building community spirit and a healthy place to live. There is even an app for that – OLIO.

Day 17: Learn the various ways to dispose of organic waste and which system suits you best (eg composting, worm farming, bokashi), and commit to using it. In some parts of the world, there are also organic waste collections.

Day 18: Buy locally grown and made produce. This helps to reduce food miles (ie transport) and therefore carbon emissions. Food will generally be fresher, require less refrigeration and of course, it also helps to stimulate the local economy, which benefits the whole community. Try to also buy what’s in season, so that less resources are used to grow your produce. I also advocate for buying organic, or at least spray-free produce, as it has a lesser impact upon the natural environment and it’s better for you. Don’t forget your ‘ugly’ fruits and vegetables – just because they may not look perfect to you, they are usually the tastiest!

On Day 19, we looked at consumption in general, and started asking the question, why do we need all this stuff?

Day 19: Watch the Story of Stuff video here and start asking yourself, “Do I really need to buy it?” each time you are about to make a purchase. Day 20: Influence your friends, families, colleagues and others in the store when you’re making a purchasing decision, by telling them why you are refusing a plastic bag, or why you chose product B instead of product A. Invite them to join our One World to Share community, and get the ripple effect spreading throughout the wider global community. In our third week, we studied the truth behind the world’s second most-polluting industry, fast-fashion.

Day 21: Avoid synthetic fibres wherever possible, as these fabrics loose tiny microfibres in the wash, which are so fine that they get washed out into our aquatic and marine ecosystems, causing major problems to wildlife. (Remember back to the plastic pollution that we talked about on Day 1).

Day 22: Choose natural textiles, preferably organic fabrics, and only those which use non-toxic dyes. The amount of chemicals, energy and water used in the production of fast-fashion is significant, and it is contributing to polluted waterways in many developing countries, making it harmful for the people and wildlife who use these water supplies.

Day 23: Fast-fashion is driven by customer demand, from the industry’s 52 micro-season trends a year, utilising labour that is often underpaid and/or working in poor health and safety conditions. These items are generally not made to last, and end up in landfill very quickly, contributing to waste of resources and increased refuse space being required. Learn which brands are socially responsible, and audit their supply chains, and only support those organisations. Spread the word to others. Day 24: When you do have to shop, check out op shops first. You’ll be extending the life of an item, as well as supporting local charities. Day 25: Water use for growing non-organic cotton is leading to desertification in many parts of the world, such as the irrigation of the Aral Sea on the border of Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Although cotton is a natural fibre, always choose non-organic cotton when buying new products. Customer demand will drive supply.

Day 26: Remember to recycle your clothing – donate to charity op shops, organise a clothes swap party with friends, turn your older clothes into rags or cloth ‘paper towels’, use your fave bits to make a brooch or accessorise a jumper, or create a whole new fabric from which to create a new item.

Day 27: Buy the very best quality that you can afford. It may cost a little more upfront, but the item will last longer, and therefore reduce the impact upon the environment in terms of landfill waste and resources required to make replacement garments. Often, well-made garments are easier to mend as well, which will also extend the product’s life cycle.

Last week, we started to look at hosting kids’ birthday parties that are zero-waste (or near zero-waste) events. We are still continuing this theme, but this is where we are at so far:

Day 28: Ditch the disposables. The kids will survive if they don’t have balloons, party poppers, glow sticks and plastic straws. Use this opportunity to teach your kids about the impact that plastic has upon marine life, including sea birds. You can easily supply finger food, that doesn’t need plates, or go to your local op shop and get a mixture of plates and cups that can easily be run through the dishwasher when you’re finished.

Day 29: Choose long-lasting gifts, with zero or low-waste. I prefer giving ‘experiences’, rather than more ‘stuff’ unless that stuff is really useful to the recipient. I adore making gifts, or choosing items that the children can make themselves (with or without you), as these have a special memory attached to them. Also look at choosing wooden toys rather than plastic (especially avoiding cheap plastic toys as you may find in ‘Dollar shops’). Also search the op shops and antique stores for a great find. One of the other categories that I absolutely love, is to give gardening supplies to children, and introduce them to growing their own vegetables, seeing the wonder of a seed grow into a plant, the excitement of birds, bees and butterflies in their garden.

Day 30: Ditch the loot bag, or if you can’t find yourself doing that, choose an eco-friendly gift instead. This year, we gave each guest a seedling wrapped in newspaper, to plant at home, to bring bees into the garden. They were a hit with the children and the parents! Another option is to give your friends a ‘Thank you for coming’ card, saying that in lieu of loot bags, you have made a donation to a specific charity – for example, you have gifted a goat to a small village through Oxfam! That helps all the children to think about the beauty of giving and thinking of others. After all, how many kids really need more lollies, or plastic trinkets that will probably be forgotten about or break in 24 hours (or less).

Day 31: Wrap gifts in reusable packaging and think of alternatives to paper. If your kids have produced art for school, why not use this as wrapping paper? A bespoke creation! Or choose fabric or tea towels, old calendars, jars, painted cereal boxes or recycled paper bags. Decorations of a pine cone or flower, tied on with cotton string can add a bit of pizazz. Create your own handmade cards with upcycled materials. I always think that a handmade card is much more special than a bought card.

There is a lot more to come, so make sure you’re signed up to One World to Share on Facebook.