8 Ways You Can Make A Difference for the Environment

You are one person. You may look at the state the world is in and be somewhat disappointed. There are multiple things happening to the environment that just aren’t okay. Humans are using a ton of plastics. These plastics get discarded in the ocean and can negatively affect marine wild life. Our insistence on fracking and taking oil from tribal land has the effect of erasing culture.

While there are many environmental issues globally, there is something you can do to help. Instead of taking an immediately global approach to helping the environment, you can make a difference by impacting your own environment. Cleaning your local park, planting in community gardens, and encouraging proper recycling techniques are all ways you can help make a difference in your environment.

We look to provide you with multiple ways that you can make a difference in your environment.

Recycle

Recycling is an excellent way that you can make a difference in your environment. Recycling is a broad term that refers to an entire concept of reusing or repurposing materials. There are a number of materials that can be recycled to help positively impact the environment.

There are also a number of resources to help you figure out what items in your home are recyclable. For example, if you are an Illinois or Wisconsin state resident, there are charts you can follow that will assist you with recycling.

According to Groot, Illinois and Wisconsin residents should be recycling the following materials from their homes:

• Paper
• Plastic
• Metal
• Glass
• Aseptic packaging

Groot goes to great lengths to describe the ways in which you can prepare the previously mentioned materials for recycling. Recycling is an easy way to help impact your local environment by reducing the amount of harmful materials that go back into the environment.

Minimize Food Waste

Something you can do simply in your home is to minimize food waste. According to the USDA, it is estimated that Americans waste between 30% and 40% of the total amount of food produced in America. This is abysmal.

Panera Bread and Starbucks are examples of local chains that have a large amount of food waste. Bakery items are seen as undesirable past a certain date when there are communities of folks that can benefit from that food.

There are several options that can help you reduce the food waste you produce in your home. For example, apps like OLIO offer peer-to-peer networks that allow you to share food that you are not currently consuming. Bread that might go bad soon that you don’t plan on using can be posted to this site. If someone has a need for your food waste or vice versa, you can set up an exchange. Minimizing food waste is an easy way to help your local environment.

Invest in Solar Energy

Investing in solar energy is another way you can help your local environment. Solar energy is a renewable resource that is generated from the sun. Currently, until our sun explodes, it will remain a renewable resource. Solar energy has been used in a variety of ways by humans over the years. From being used to dry out meat and fish for preservation purposes to converting solar energy into electricity, there are a number of uses for solar energy.

When you use solar energy in your home, you can drastically reduce your electricity bill and save more money over time. In fact, investing in solar energy can help you save between $3,000 and $20,000 per year. In addition to saving money, there are also state, municipality, and utility tax credits and rebates that can further lower the amount of money you spend on energy per year.

Consume Less Energy

Volunteer to Help Clean Parks

You can help impact your local environment by volunteering at your local park. It is very easy for parks to get littered with cans, paper, and various other forms of trash. Cleaning up a local park is a great way to meet people and an excellent way to help your community.

Beautiful parks encourage people to visit those parks. A community that has access to clean parks can rest assured that the park is for them. They do not have to claim that they cannot go to the park because it is dirty. Depending on where you live, a quick Google search should find you volunteer initiatives to help clean parks near you.

For example, the Chicago Park District has parks listed on their site that give locations where folks are helping clean local parks.

Participate in Community Gardens

Another easy way to help make environmental change in your local neighborhood is to participate in community gardens. Community gardens help feed communities and are an excellent way to provide food when you live in a food desert. Community gardens also promote community by getting people to work together to grow different crops.

Working at a community garden isn’t just beneficial for the environment, though. Community gardens can help instill a sense of pride in a community by making that community relatively sustainable. If you are interested in community gardens in your area, we recommend you search for community gardens near where you live.

Reuse Old Material

DIY culture exist because of the ability of humans to recycle and reuse items that may appear to have little or no value. Did you know that you can transform old jeans into cut-off shorts? You can also use material from clothes that are old to make new clothes.

Learning how to sew is a valuable skill that will help you reuse old materials. Instead of purchasing your clothes brand-new from a department store, you could utilize local thrift stores. Not only do thrift stores sell clothes at a more affordable price point, they also have a wide range of styles that you won’t be able to find in most department stores.

In fact, thrift store shopping is a great way to keep up with vintage styles and outfit your wardrobe at an affordable price.

Donate Your Clothes to Goodwill or Donation Centers

One of the last things you can do to actively benefit your local environment is to donate clothes and items you don’t use. Instead of throwing your clothes away, leading to the waste of clothes and other resources, you could give your clothes to folks in need.

Companies like Goodwill and local thrift stores do an excellent job of taking clothes and reselling them to folks at an affordable rate. When you donate your clothes, you can receive special discounts at stores, making purchasing new clothes cheaper.

Donating your clothes is an easy way to make a difference in your community. Why waste clothing when it can go to perfect use by another human being?

There Are a Number of Ways You Can Make a Difference in Your Environment

You don’t need to work on a wildlife preservation or in the far reaches of the Arctic to help the environment. You can make a difference by influencing the environment that you are in. We covered different ways you can do that. These methods include:

• Recyle
• Minimize your food waste
• Invest in solar energy
• Consume less energy
• Volunteer to help clean parks
• Participate in community gardens
• Reuse old materials
• Donate your clothes to donation centers

By doing any of the previously mentioned tasks, you are well on your way to making a difference in your environment. If enough people contribute to their local environment in meaningful and positive ways, the overall state of the environment will improve.