Laws are Being Rolled Back. Does that mean we can’t still protect the Environment?
For the last two and a half years, many environmental laws, among others, are being rolled back by the Trump administration. Does that mean that Roundup is now all right to use? Does it mean that we have to spray the bees with the at least five kinds of pesticide that are killing them?? Of course not.
We can do it ourselves. If we have the will. If we really want to protect ourselves from environmental disaster.
First of all, individual acts of choice can make a difference. Let’s start with plastic. We’ve all seen it in our social media feeds, right. Right wing conservatives making fun of snowflakes for not using plastic straws. “Oh, that’s going to help,” they say as they show a picture of a homeless camp, strewn with the debris of trying to live life on the margins with our cast-off trash. The plight of the homeless is a whole other post or even posts. For now, let’s focus on the trash.
The straws aren’t the be all and end all, of course. And anyone can turn that simple choice into something ridiculous. But the point of the matter is that those people who choose to not use a plastic straw are deliberately, mindfully, making a choice. Either drink from the glass, or from your own mug you’ve brought and filled, or bring your own permanent straw, all of these are ways to take one tiny piece of trash out of the tsunami of trash flowing to the landfills every day.
If you bring your own cup, well then, that’s two pieces of trash. I’ve been thinking about this myself. I have 3 plastic reusable straws in a baggie in my purse. I know, the baggie is a one-time use piece of plastic but I’m using it over and over, so, there’s that, I guess. Then there’s the matter of extra paper. I’ve seen more and more info telling me I’d save both money and the environment if I’d ditch the paper towels and paper napkins we use in our home. Makes sense. Right? If I use cloth dish towels and cloth napkins, I do a little bit more laundry, but I don’t fill my trashcan with hundreds of pieces of paper trash a week.
If I use dryer balls instead of fabric softener, I keep those chemicals out of my waste-water stream as well as eliminating the dryer sheet in the trash flow.
See what I mean? Another one is plastic film. Generally, I use reuseable plastic bowls with lids to store left-overs in the fridge but the hubby doesn’t like to do that. He’d rather put the left-overs in a baggie or cover the bowl with plastic wrap. To stop that, I’m moving toward DIY reuseable beeswax covered cloth. It sticks to the bowl, it covers the food, and it’s reuseable. You can buy them ready made, too, if you’d like.
I can make the choice not to buy the toxin RoundUp to kill the weeds in my yard, even if the local stores still carry it. I can choose to use more environmentally friendly soaps and cleaners. I can choose to not wash my car as soon as it gets dusty to save water. Another water-saver is to have a yard covered in stone, rather than turf. No watering required at all and for places where water is an issue, this is a big step.
You see what I mean? There are things each of us can do. Collectively, that really makes a difference. Now, expand that. Tell your local government that you want them to act more environmentally friendly. Depends on your town, of course, what that means. Mulch tree trimmings the local department of parks and rec create while keeping local public spaces spruced up. Check out this new road paving idea they’re using in India that turns plastic waste into paving material.
You get the picture, right? Now take it to your state. I know the President is all against states setting their own standards, see recent stories about California setting its own auto emission laws, but he can’t do that if we put up a fuss. Our local and state governments can make the choice not to use bee killing pesticides. They can set pollution standards.
And recently I read that Canadians got together in some sort of Go Fund Me campaign and funded the purchase of land the citizens wanted to have as a public land. They bought it! Now it’s a national park! How cool is that!
We can use our dollars and our email to convince corporations to stop polluting, stop creating endless streams of toxic waste. It’s harder to do that than to have a federal law make them stop but it can be done at the local and state levels. It just takes some effort on our part.
We don’t have to wait on the Federal system to do something if we don’t want to. We can stop polluting the ocean. We can stop pouring pesticides onto the land. We can vote representatives into our government that take us seriously in our efforts to protect the environment. We can make a difference. One person at a time. One decision at a time. One piece of trash at a time. One vote at a time.
