My oldest daughter came home with a paper from school talking about all the ways to take care of our mother earth. They were simple ideas like turning off lights when you’re not in the room, using reusable bags, and switching light bulbs to more efficient ones. As she rushed around telling me all the ways we can help the environment, it got me excited to see how we could help on a bigger scale in our home. This sent me into an internet whirlwind of searching ways to make our home more environmentally friendly. And it got really depressing.

I knew we were killing the earth but I guess it really didn’t hit home for me until I realized that my children would be the generation that had to deal with generations of stupid environmental decisions. I spend so much time making sure my kids have healthy well rounded childhoods so that they can grow up into healthy happy adults- I failed to internalize that the place that they would be adults is dying. I think instinctively we want to leave our dwelling, planet, environment (whatever you want to call it) better for our children then it was when we got it. In some ways we are, but in many, we are failing.

When our little family went to the beach, you could not help but notice all the plastic particles washed up on shore. And our oceans are FILLED with plastic. My daughter is young and optimistic, so her response was, “We can fix it, we can be better!” The problem is overwhelming and monstrous in nature to an adult, but to my daughter, this is a simple change of habits (which is difficult for adults to do). So instead of being distressed, we are going to start little and keep trying to be better. The first challenge is plastic.

Here is what we are going to start to do in our family around plastic reduction:

– Using reusable bags.

– Reduce plastic purchase (water bottles, soda bottles, packaged foods, etc).

– Don’t use straws (you are going to see what I mean after watching the turtle video)

– Shop in bulk and store items in glass/metal.

Here is some great information on our environment:

http://www.plasticoceans.org/film/

http://plasticparadisemovie.com/

http://www.ntd.tv/2016/12/04/plastic_pollution_killing_turtle/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wH878t78bw

http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/before-the-flood/videos/before-the-flood-trailer/

My Challenge to you: Check out different ways to help out our environment so that our kids will have something nice to inherit. Don’t get overwhelmed, just make one goal this week and stick with it. I am adding a new goal every few days while we continue to implement these aspects into day to day living.  

Here is our plan for example:

Wednesday: Using reusable bags (putting them in the car and remembering to use them)

Friday: Not purchasing items with lots of packaging.

Saturday: No straw use.

Sunday/Monday: Shop in bulk and store items in glass/mental.  

 

I will update you in the next few weeks with the obstacles we came across- so let me know what you figured out too. 🙂

Happy tree hugging friends!

-Jessie the Therapist