High seas
The high seas are a hot spot for biodiversity. Biodiversity means that there are large numbers of lots of different creatures living together in an area. In fact, The ocean is an awesome palace of nature. There is so much wildlife, all with amazing structures and bodies that can survive in the deep or shallow seas.
There are so many threats to the palace of nature in the oceans. These include over fishing. Over fishing means that we destroy the seas by taking too many fish out.
Also, rubbish is thrown into the oceans. Landfill is where rubbish goes that can not be recycled. Sometimes, landfill sites get too full. The rubbish is emptied into the sea instead.
Animals can get trapped in rubbish. For example, straws might get stuck up their nose or plastic bags might strangle them.
If this does not kill the animal, it will certainly make them suffer.
When rubbish in on land or the sea, the chemical are absorbed into the land and water. This kills plants and animals and humans.
Whenever the lives of a species of animal or plant is threatened, everything is threatened. In our world, everything depends on one another. We must protect one another in order to protect ourselves.
We must control what we take out of the high seas. We must think about what we put in. The high seas will thank us all.
"Think about the end of life of a product, right from the beginning"
- Our Planet videos
Refuse
Stop buying things that you do not need.
Please do not buy things just because they are on trend. Here are some examples of what you can do instead:
Keeping fit- You do not have to have a high-tech, fancy gym in order to stay fit. Sports clubs can be run outside or just in a simple village hall.
My dad loves cycling. But cycling is too dangerous when it is dark and icy in winter.
He bought a second hand turbo trainer. A turbo trainer is a metal frame that he sits his bike on so that he can cycle without the bike going anywhere.
Now, during the winter, he can cycle in the shed next to the camping gear and drills and paint and all the other stuff. When he gets too hot, he opens the shed door, he does not use an electric fan.
Living- Avoid building new buildings. Only build new when it is necessary. Or to remodel existing buildings to make them better for the environment and the users.
Live in a house that is the right size for you. If you are one person, do not live in a house with 6 bedrooms. If you own one house, do not buy another house just to have.
Challenge
Reduce the amount of fish you eat.
Eat vegetarian for 2 days per week.
Go completely vegetarian.
Share things
When you no longer need something, share it with someone else.
Likewise, if you want to buy something, buy something shared.
In other words, buy and sell second hand items. This means that whatever things we make continue to be used. The cycle of the products life keeps going.
Here are some ideas:
-Borrow the things that you need from friends, family, neighbours or libraries.
Libraries are not always for borrowing books. New types of libraries are being invented. For example, you can borrow clothes for a 2 weeks and then return them to the clothes library for someone else.
-Rent the things that you need.
-Buy second-hand
-Give what you no longer need to charity.
-To find out more, have a look at this Shopping and Trashing directory
Melanie Lissack says that you can create your own masterpiece.
If you really want a particular style or item, but it is just too expensive. Make your own!
Her example is when she used an IKEA cupboard and turned it into a gin cabinet by adding MDF panels, some paint and some fancy handles.
She did this by ‘shopping in her home’ and using what she already had, plus a few extra supplies. The whole project cost around £130. If she had bought her original dream gin cabinet, she would have spent £2600.
Repair and repurpose
Do not throw away things that are broken. Instead find a way to fix them. Or turn them into something new, this is upcycling.
Mending and upcycling is really fun. It also saves money that you would have to spend on a replacement item.
You can even use junk to make treasures. For example, you could write your shopping lists or to-do lists on the back of paper or used envelopes.
Look at the activities booklet at the bottom of this page for all sorts of creating and doing. You can do so much with so little. The guide is for anyone of any age or ability or interest or location.
Clothes-
-Mend your clothes or adjust them if they are not quite right.
-Learn to sew or dye your clothes. Here is a great guide for dying clothing: https://moralfibres.co.uk/how-to-dye-fabrics-using-natural-materials/)
-Make your own clothes. Sewing, knitting, crochet. You can make the clothes exactly how you want them to be. Homemade clothes are often cheaper because you can use the left over fabric or wool for other projects. Plus you can impress your friends.
Cleaning
-Reuse old and worn-out clothes. T-shirts make great rags for cleaning or handkerchiefs.
-Make a soap saver for bars of soap. Pop the soap into a fabric or woollen pouch when the bar is starting to break up and be messy. Then use the bar in the pouch just like normal. This will make the soap last longer. When the bar has finally run out, just open the pouch and leave it to dry.
-Collect pieces of soap bars that are running out. Then melt all the different bars together to make a new mixture bar of soap.
Buildings and furniture
-Paint over items and buildings to give them a fresh look. Paint can also protect from rust, dirt and water.
plasti-kote.co.uk makes spray paints for literally every use from cars, arts and crafts, grass, graffiti remover. graphenstone.co.uk makes paint that can absorb greenhouse gases!
-Sugru is a company that makes mouldable glue to fix stuff easily. Nothing is un-glue-able.
Electrics
-Lots of companies refurbish electrical devices and machines. For example, tmi-reman.com/ sells and refurbishes automobile parts. Backmarket sells and refurbishes electrical appliances, phones, gadgets
-Machines can be turned into other things as well. For example, a washing machine could become a big storage box. The washing machine drum could become a plant pot. The pipes could become rope for hanging lights on the ceiling. The wires could be used by a school to explore electricity and engineering.
Challenge
Notice 1 thing that you often throw away this week. Think about how you can avoid throwing away that thing next week. Will you replace it with a re-useable version? Will you repurpose it instead of throwing it away? Or will you stop using it altogether?
Reuse
Going out and adventures.
-Bring your own. Take your own kitchen cutlery, reusable sandwich wraps and lunchboxes, water bottle, napkins and wet wipes.
You should be allowed to fill up water bottles and coffee cups in cafes.
You should be allowed to have take-away food served into your own lunchbox. If you insist on servers using your reuseable cups and plates, you will save the planet from more plastic take-away bottles and cups and trays.
-Use a wet-bag or laundry bag. This is instead of bringing your dirty laundry home in a plastic hotel bag.
-Bring your own snacks and lunches. This is probably cheaper than buying service station snacks. Plus you know what is in your food and it is not wrapped in plastic.
-Use your current shampoo bottle to fill up some old smaller bottles for travelling shampoo. Do this for other toiletries and medications as well.
If you use shampoo and soap bars, cut your shampoo and soap bars into a smaller piece. Put it into a soap saver poach for travelling.
Self-care and cosmetics.
Surely we cannot use re-useable toilet paper?
We can! Not everyone is willing to try this. That is understandable. Have a look at these tips and see what you can do.
Everybody eats and farts and poos and burps and wees in some way. Some people menstruate. Some people have long body hair. Some people sneeze more than others. Some people have smelly feet.
The body is very complicated. It is magnificent!
-Use reusable products- kitchen roll, cloths, hand towels, toilet roll
-Reusable wet wipes. 'Cheeky wipes' explains how to use these and sells the products.
-Reusable tissues. Cut up old shirts or bed sheets to make tissues (the more colourful the better!). Put the clean ones in pots in all your rooms next to a dirty tissues box. Wash the dirty ones regularly.
When you go out and about, you can take a handful of these tissues with you. This is just like handkerchiefs which were very popular in years gone by.
-Use re-useable sanitary products.
Menstrual cups are a great alternative to tampons. They can be tricky to insert but they are portable and easy to clean.
Reusable pads are nice and simple. They also look pretty
Period pants are so comfortable that you forget that you are even on your period. You do not need any other pad, just the pants.
HeyGirls and WeAreDame sell period pants, reusable pads and biodegradable single-use sanitary products. Red Moon Gang has great advice for anyone who menstruates.
Cooking and food-
-Reuse baking paper at least 2 times when you bake. Or use re-useable silicone baking paper. 'Agreena 3 in 1 wrap' can be used for as baking paper or covering food like cling film or as sandwich wraps.
-Use a tea strainer or a mini tea pot instead of tea bags.
-Try re-useable sandwich bags and Ziploc bags. You can store food in these re-useable bags. Or you can take a packed lunch in them.
-Save your waste and eat it tomorrow. These websites have good recipes for using up scraps: 'https://www.lovefoodhatewaste.com/recipes'
-Try meal planning:
--Make a list of all the meals you are going to eat this week. Then you can shop in one go. And you know what you are going to buy. You will not waste money on what you do not need.
--You can make sure that you are eating properly too. It is ok to write ‘going to a restaurant’ or ‘ready-made meal’ on some days as well. You do not have to be a master chef!
--Only cook what you will eat. If you do make too much food, store it.
-Have a look at the information on Grasslands
Clothes
-Wear the same clothes more than once. You can style an outfit a bit differently. Or you can just wear the same outfit over and over.
clean out packaging of products that you buy and reuse them (for example, if you buy a tub of yoghurt, when you are done with it, wash it. Use the tub for sandwiches or sea shells or whatever you would like),
Cleaning-
-Use a hoover with a filter instead of using hoover bags. Rinse out your filter regularly. This will keep it in good condition.
Challenge
Encourage your friends to sort their rubbish. Encourage your friends to shift to re-useable things.
Put it in the right bin
If you cannot get unpackaged things or refills, chose brands that use packaging that you can dispose of responsibly.
For example, 'Waterdrop' is a company that makes little flavoured tablets that make water taste yummy. This is a better alternative to plastic bottles of flavoured water because 'Waterdrops' are use cardboard packaging which is very easy to recycle.
Plus the tablets are small but with lots of flavour. This means that you can fit more tablets into one packet. Whereas you can only fit one drink into one plastic bottle.
Almost everything can be recycled or reused in some way. Some things are more difficult to recycle than other things. Do what you can.
Separate your rubbish. Do not put landfill in the recycling and do not put recycling in landfill. Clean you rubbish before you throw it because wet or food covered items cannot be recycled. Remove the non-recyclable parts of an item and recycle the rest of it.
Yes, this might take a bit of extra time. Sometimes we need to slow down a bit and breathe. It is good to pause and rest.
Recycle paper, card, hard plastic, glass, metals
Terracycle soft plastics
Shred-it is a company that provides several different services for disposing of sensitive items such as confidential documents and credit cards. You use one of their excellent shredders on your site and the shreds are collected regularly and recycled rather than wasted.
Suez is a company that does lots of different types of recycling. They also use landfill waste and convert it into electricity. They treat hazardous waste and clinical waste. This ensures that waste does not poison the earth as much.
You can recycle waste at home or in businesses. EcoBricks is a system where you fill plastic bottles with junk. When the bottle is completely full, it is called an EcoBrick. Then it can be used to built new things. Have a look at this website to find out how to get involved: https://ecobricks.org/en/what.php
Compost food waste and items made of plant materials.
'theragandboneman.co.uk' makes furniture and interior accessories out of industry waste such as aeroplane engines turned into mirrors!
Mel from 'melsartlamps.com' makes lighting out of old mannequins and all sorts
Refuse packaging
Stop buying things that are wrapped in unnecessary packaging. For example, buy apples loose instead of a bag of apples.
Shop at refill shops. This is when you take your containers and fill them up with whatever you need. All sorts of companies and shops offer refills. This is also really fun. It is a good experience for children to learn motor skills and maths.
Buy things in bulk- this means that you buy a big box of an item every 2 weeks. This is instead of buying a smaller box every week.
Avoid take-aways or ready meals. These usually come in lots of plastic packaging. And their ingredients have travelled far to you.
-Instead of buying take-aways and ready meals, have a day per month to cook up lots of meals. Then serve the meals into boxes and freeze them. When you need a quick and easy meal, you can defrost your yummy home cooked ready meal.
-'Acre Homestead' on YouTube has a lot of good ideas for home cooked ready meals
-Avoid packaging and little sweet wrappers. Make personalised homemade treats and nibbles. This is especially good at Halloween and for Easter eggs. Homemade treats and nibbles are such a lovely gift to receive as well.
Kintsugi is a type of art from Japan. It involves gluing broken plates and mugs back together. But you use gold colour glue. This forms lovely and unique patterns of gold scars.
Something broken becomes arguably more beautiful and unique once it is healed.
Challenge
Close your landfill bin for 1 week. Do not put anything in the landfill bin for the whole week.
Party with the high seas
Decorate your venue with things that help wildlife. For example, here is a Christmas wreath that feeds the birds: https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/actions/how-make-christmas-wreath-birds
Decorate the space with re-useable decorations. Then at the end of the celebration, you can pack up your decorations and memories. You can bring them out again another time. The happy times are reused and made more special.
For example, refuse a Christmas tree and decorate around the house instead. Make every room Christmassy! Father Christmas could leave the presents by the fire place or in a ‘grotto’ corner in a certain room.
Make your own favours, count-down calendars and Christmas crackers. These are great activities for children and adults alike. You can write little messages, jokes, challenges and make little gifts or sweets to put into handmade bags. Or put them into calendar hangings or bunting.
Borrow equipment, decorations, costumes etc. You could borrow friends, family or neighbours. There are also organisations such as 'The partykitnetwork'. These can lend party essentials.
Gift giving-
-Reuse wrapping paper or newspaper, ribbons and tags for wrapping gifts.
-Cut up used greetings cards and write on them to be gift tags.
-Use reusable fabric wraps and bags or wrap presents in T-shirts or old pieces of fabric or in pillow cases (or duvet covers if it is a big present- who does not love a sack of gifts!).
-Reuse gifts. If you are given something that you do not really want or need, gift it to someone else. Or take it to a charity shop.
-Give gifts that are not physical. Or give gifts that are useful and that your loved one will not want to throw away.
For example, a hug, a song, a letter of how awesome they are, an experience (such as going to the theatre, wine tasting, holiday, concert. This does not have to be expensive), a promise or handmade voucher (promise to do their gardening, go camping together, organise a dance class for them, make a meal for them, babysitting for free, take them out for a coffee….), donation to a charity that means something to them (Oxfam Unwrapped, WWF, Choose Love, Concern Worldwide etc.), plant a tree or sponsor an animal in their name
-Give disposable gifts. No, not disposable as in plastic toothbrushes. Things that are single-use and useful.
For example, food that is eaten, drinks, cosmetics, spice blends and tea mixes, baking kits. These can all be handmade as well!
Donate used costumes to charity shops or sell them. For example, sell them on Ebay
Ditch the confetti. Or make recycled confetti: cut up scrap paper or pieces of nice fabric scraps. Reuse the confetti if you can