Tag: Recycling

Environmental Anxiety – 3 things you can do to help your kids

Posted on by Karac Avalron

Anxiety comes in all forms and it doesn’t discriminate as to whom it affects. Children are not immune to anxiety and one of the leading causes of anxiety for kids today (under 18) is the environment. This post isn’t going to get into a debate on climate change. I will say two things; first the world is warmer now that’s not debatable. Second, there are more ways to obtain information now than ever before which makes things seem worse than they are.

All that out of the way it doesn’t negate the fact that children have environmental anxiety. Are they being taught that humans are polluting the world? Is it some vast liberal conspiracy to indoctrinate these kids? I don’t know but what I will say is their awareness of environmental issues is impressive. “Not in my life time” is something I might be able to say, my neighbors kid Kate who is 11? What does the world looks like in 40 years, 2061?

How do you help them now though? Isn’t that a parents most important charter? To empower their kids to be productive and thriving adults? (rhetorical of course).

  1. Start a recycling cycle: Every family accumulates trash. Types of trash vary depending on where you live but its most likely that you have accumulated plastic. Plastic can be rinsed and recycled. Make it a weekly or bi weekly task where you and your children clean the plastic and bring it to a recycle center.
  2. Read articles about climate change together: Direct engagement here, read the climate change stories with your child. Don’t read the stories to the child, read them WITH the child. This enables the child to engage YOU directly on the issue, discuss it, tell you what they think. You in turn get to tell them your point of view as well. You don’t have to agree with everything written but you are doing it together and that’s the critical point.
  3. Buy local products: Bring your child with you and purchase local products from small businesses and individuals in your area. Going to a super store near you means you are consuming products that were probably shipped via a container, then trucked in. This type of product is one of the dirties products in the world. Not the item itself but how it got to the store. Inform your child of this, tell them why you are buying local and or why they can’t have “Item X” from big store retailer, tie it into the environment.
Plastic destroys the environment
Plastic is choking the world to death

Small incremental changes where you are engaging your child directly gives them a stake or as we say in my part of the world “skin in the game” to the environment. They crave your guidance; the world is full of information now they are getting data from multiple inputs every minute of every day. The tips above give them avenues to affect positive outcomes, learn about issues and most importantly interact with you and hone in on your family’s values when it comes to environmental issues.

Remember when they are middle age adults somewhere in the 2050’s the world might be a very different place. It could be environmentally worse or better depending on the values we instill now. Even if you don’t think climate change is a major issue the tips above are all positives. Your child will appreciate it.

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Plastic destroys the environment

Plastic Sucks

Posted on by Karac Avalron

I don’t normally do environmental pieces on this blog but today we step outside of the normal format to discuss plastic. I use plastic, Im sure you do to. Plastic is horrible for the environment and if you have the ability to do so, you should not only use less of it but do your part in cleaning up some of the plastic already polluting our world.

Need convincing? Here are some random facts about plastic.

  • Over the last ten years we have produced more plastic than during the whole of the last century.
  • 50 percent of the plastic we use, we use just once and throw away.
  • Enough plastic is thrown away each year to circle the earth four times.
  • Plastic accounts for around 10 percent of the total waste we generate.
  • Plastic in the ocean breaks down into such small segments that pieces of plastic from a one liter bottle could end up on every mile of beach throughout the world.
  • Annually approximately 500 billion plastic bags are used worldwide. More than one million bags are used every minute.
  • 46 percent of plastics float (EPA 2006) and it can drift for years before eventually concentrating in the ocean gyres.
  • It takes 500-1,000 years for plastic to degrade.
How many plastic bottles did you throw away last year?
  • Billions of pounds of plastic can be found in swirling convergences in the oceans making up about 40 percent of the world’s ocean surfaces. 80 percent of pollution enters the ocean from the land.
  • The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is located in the North Pacific Gyre off the coast of California and is the largest ocean garbage site in the world. This floating mass of plastic is twice the size of Texas, with plastic pieces outnumbering sea life six to one.
  • Plastic constitutes approximately 90 percent of all trash floating on the ocean’s surface, with 46,000 pieces of plastic per square mile.
  • One million sea birds and 100,000 marine mammals are killed annually from plastic in our oceans.
  • 44 percent of all seabird species, 22 percent of cetaceans, all sea turtle species and a growing list of fish species have been documented with plastic in or around their bodies.

Source

Plastic is horrible for the environment and horrible for all of our futures. I know I sound hyperbolic and this post is out of the norm for this blog. I feel strongly about plastic pollution and I hope, in my small corner of the blog sphere, the people who read this take it to heart and do something, anything to cut down on the plastic.

Interested in another post from my blog? Check out this one.