Living in a Tree-Free Home!🌲

When I say a tree-free home, I don't mean a tree-free garden. So you should definitely still fill your garden with trees to make your garden greener! But I'm talking about what's on the inside. For example: your printers or napkins. You usually find you have a lot of paper in your house. So here's how you can save and re-use it!

• If you have them, replace paper napkins with cloth ones. However, you should make sure you know what fabric it's made out of because the fabric can also make an environmental impact too. Cloth is better than paper since they can be washed and used a lot more than paper ones, and people who use paper ones usually go through a lot more paper ones throughout a meal.
• Re-use envelopes! I know this sounds weird and impossible because they have been written on, but you could stick a plain piece of paper (or one of those plain white stickers if you need to use those up) over top of the first address, then write your one over top.
• Use your old cards. Cut off the side with the picture on and write your own message, to make a sort of post card. I already wrote about this, in my second or third blog I believe. But you may need reminding! 
• If you have a printer, print your documents on both side of the page. Or, you could change the setting before you print so you print two pages onto one, if you know what I mean. 
• Try to buy fewer books, magazines or newspapers. Either go online and read your news or e-books, or borrow them from a library.

 You could also try making your own paper out of old paper. Of course, it won't end up smooth and white as something you'd buy, but you can usually write on it. Here is a link that takes you to a page which does a step by step how-to of making recycled paper.  

                  

Thank you for reading this blog! I hope you liked it and come back next Sunday for another one!

Violet

         xxx

Biodegradable vs Degradable.🛍

Biodegradable - a product that breaks down into natural elements, water vapour and carbon dioxide, which isn't harmful to the environment. They break down completely and turn into organic materials.

Degradable - products which are mostly oil based and break down through chemical reactions. However, unlike biodegradable products, they do not break down completely but turn into microscopic pieces and still affect the environment.

There was an experiment a bit more than a year ago about whether plastic bags which say they're biodegradable actually are. They buried compostable, conventional and two types of 'biodegradable' carrier bags in different places (under the sea, underground) and after three years, they dug them up. They found that, although having been in nature for three years, most of the bags (the 'biodegradable' ones) were still able to hold shopping. You can read the article about it here. 

So from the article, you can see how although a product might say it is biodegradable, it doesn't always mean it is because you need all the right conditions to make it happen. Also, don't buy something if it just says it's biodegradable. What would be better is just buying something with less packaging.

Also, if you dispose of a biodegradable product in the wrong way, it will go to landfill. They will often become buried and will not remain under the rubbish because there's so little oxygen. This means they will biodegrade without oxygen (anaerobically) and consequentially create methane (a bad greenhouse gas). This is why you should always dispose of biodegradable products the right way, through recycling or compost.

Thank you for reading this week's post on biodegradable products! See you next Sunday.

Violet

         xxx

Tupperware Boxes! 🙃

 I - well my family - basically have one whole draw for tupperware boxes and their lids. We've used them all a million times for a million different things (for example; I once used one to keep a really sick mouse that I found in. I drilled holes into the lid and kept it warm, but it ended up dying anyway because it was way to sick😥). They may have just been bought, or we have reused plastic boxes that have come from takeaways. 

I believe tupperware boxes are good because they can be re-used over and over again, we have a couple with broken lids that we still use because the lid is able to stay on, and they have many different purposes, such as:

• Taking your lunch into work and school. 
• Storing left over food to eat the next day.
• Storing pens and pencils in when you have an extra amount, like what I said two weeks ago.
• Fill with some water for a child to use as a swimming pool or body of water with their toys! (I personally used to love doing that with my old barbies or Playmobil 😀) Although, not too much because you don't want to waste too much water.

The actual brand, Tupperware, started their No Time To Waste brand in 2019. This is making their things even more eco friendly and now sustainably sourced by 2025. 

Although No Time To Waste makes their containers Bisphenol A free, there are sometimes health benefits in choosing another eco friendly container like glass, bamboo or stainless steel. 

So, whenever you get a takeaway which come with plastic boxes, think before you throw them away. See you next Sunday!

Violet

         xxx

Making Your School (or Work) Better!🏫

I'm not a very confident person, so you'd probably never see me speaking up in front of my fellow class mates and telling them how we could make our school better. However, I do (well, did, since I haven't been in months because of lock down) go to my eco council at school. We met up and talked about what we could do to make our school better. We didn't actually get to do any of our ideas because of covid19 but we thought and planned it. 

So, here are some ways to make your school (and I guess where you work too) better:

1. Walk - or cycle! I know this is something you probably get reminded to do a lot, but it really does help. You get exercise, and a greener environment. I understand that you might live very far away from your destination, so that it would take too long to get there, but then you could use public transport (that's a link to my blog about it, if you need to know why public transport's better.)
2. Recycling. Yes, it is very hard to get every child or adult to put food, packaging or paper in the right bins. When I began at my school, on top of every bin was a poster about what you could put in the bin, but sadly quite quickly the posters mysteriously 'disappeared'. I'm afraid, I don't exactly know how to get everyone to listen if you say "make sure the paper goes in the recycling and the food in the food waste" but you could try putting up posters or reminding people in assemblies and meetings like we did. It's worth a shot.
3. Plant trees. Last year in November it was Plant A Tree Day (I think), the eco council and whole school council at my school planted 200 trees in our playground. I don't know how they're doing, but I hope they're growing well.
4. Save energy. Make sure if you see a computer or a light on when no one is using it to turn them off. (But always ask before turning off a computer because you may have accidentally deleted something important). You can also save energy by opening all the curtains instead of turning on lights, opening windows instead of using air conditioning or a fan and close the doors to keep the heat in. 
5. Start an eco council! Ask your geography (or any) teacher if you can and get talking about all the things you could do. And you could ask to talk about it in assembly.

Thank you for reading this blog! I hope you liked it, see you next Sunday!

Violet

         xxx