No one person can save the planet with just a reusable beverage container. Cities like New York are about to get more eco-friendly for energy reduction and waste management.
So it’s obvious that a variety of earth-friendly actions is for the taking.
For the taking in their own homes to make a difference.
Although small changes in an apartment over their lifetime. SO big
Diminishing humans impact you have on the planet requires us all to pitch in and demand changes in our everyday actions. So Here are just a few simple steps families and children can take for an eco-friendly lifestyle:
Save grey water
Most kids learn in elementary school that turning off the tap when they’re brushing their teeth can save as many as 300 gallons per year. Using less water is an effective way to lower wastewater treatment costs and the amount of energy used to treat and pump water. The lower energy demand helps prevent air pollution.
That’s not the only way kids can impact your family’s water usage, though. Consider how little of the water you use around the home that doesn’t need to be drinking quality.
Kids can divert clean water for use in the garden by placing a bowl under the faucet while waiting for water to run hot in the shower or when washing dishes. If your family is using earth friendly cleansers in the bathtub, your house plants will thrive with waste bathwater from bar soap.
Refuse straws or choose reusable ones
A lot of plastic pollution stems from convenience packaging for fast meals or prepared groceries but there are many ways families can reduce the use of single-use plastics.
Americans use 500 million plastic straws each day are thrown away after only one use.
Plastic is an amazing invention, but single-use plastic for convenience wreak environmental havoc. Even if they do make their way to a recycling facility, the single use items are thrown in the trash due to the type of plastic used in food are manufactured.
Paper straws wrapped individually in plastic aren’t much better since we discard the wrapper in the landfill.
Kids can limit the amount of plastic trash generated by choosing a reusable straw or not using one at all, eating at home with reusable plates and utensils, cooking at home more often, and carrying a reusable beverage container.
Use less electricity
Generating electricity is the leading industrial cause of air pollution and carbon dioxide in the US because over 50% of our electrical energy, coal and natural gas.
Your family contributes to cleaner air by using less electricity in your house or apartment.
Children can get involved by turning off unnecessary lights. So flipping the switch when they leave the room or during daylight hours.
Teens can lower electricity usage. All by powering devices off when not in use and enabling automatic efficiency settings. Many electronic devices continue to siphon power even when turned off. So it’s best to unplug anything not in use, such as game consoles or televisions.
Use bar soap for hands instead of liquid
After using the restroom at Grandpa’s home, my three-year-old stepped to the sink to wash his hands. He reached for the bar of soap and squeezed it briefly with dry hands and declared, “Nothing’s coming out!” That moment made me appreciate how much even the simplest things have changed in a single generation.
Your kids can make an outsized impression on the environment by using bar soap instead of liquid soap to wash their hands. The uniform shape and size make bars less expensive to package and ship, eliminating cardboard and lowering the carbon footprint of shipping vehicles.
Eliminating the plastic bottle and pump dispenser means there is less permanent plastic waste in landfills. Bar soap also uses about one-fifth of the energy to manufacture than liquid hand soap in a dispenser.
Kids can make even more of an impact by gathering the smallest pieces of old bars and transferring them into a biodegradable soap bag. Soap bags corral the various end pieces of leftover soap and turn them into a loofah.
As a follow-up lesson, explain why you choose to air dry your hands and wipe them on your clothes – instead of using hand dryers that use electricity or paper towels is enough in public restrooms.
Limit food waste and compost scraps
Kids don’t often have a say in food packaging. It’s up to parents whether yogurt comes home in a quart-sized plastic container or small plastic tubes. But they can certainly have a part in diverting food from the landfill, where food and yard waste rot and emit greenhouse gases.
Give your children the supplies they need to pack waste-free lunchboxes for school. Also choose a reusable beverage container instead of a pouch drink. Family-sized containers of apple sauce and chips. They can be divided into individual portions in a lunch box. Make an even bigger eco-friendly impact by scraping leftovers and food scraps into a composter. For example, many rental apartment communities in Denver offer private or curbside compost services.
We need to approach environmental stewardship from every direction. Our kids may not change a senator’s stance on the Green New Deal concept. However they can start to reform the way people live every day.
That’s unconstrained by conventional wisdom, children’s creativity can result in innovations unimaginable to adults! As good stewards of the earth, it’s up to all of us to make changes to repair the damage already done. There’s no better to redesign the future than to equip the next generation to lead the way.
