Sustainably Maija

Hi everyone and welcome back to the blog! Earth Day was yesterday, but here on Sustainably Maija it’s everyday! This is an extension to my Instagram/ Facebook post yesterday. I talked about three things you could start doing on Earth Day and continue to do. I wanted to provide some additional information and short stories about what I did on Earth Day! You can do all of this too. Happy reading!

Pick Up Trash!

Cleaning up trash no matter where you live is so important. People where I live think that the ocean plastic crisis won’t be affected by us. ERRR WRONG!! I have a creek that runs right through my neighborhood so when all that trash gets swept away by rain it gets into the creek and starts to make its way to the ocean. 80% of ocean plastics come from land-based sources like our neighborhoods. Yesterday I picked up about a pound of trash and found a lot of cigarettes, microplastics, bottles, face masks, and more. I cleaned up with my new 4Ocean gloves and bag!

Cigarettes are the most annoying thing to pick up. First of all, it’s gross! Second of all, 4.5 trillion cigarette butts are littered each year and they are the oceans biggest contaminant. The world is not an ashtray. I wish people would dispose of their cigarettes properly. I was walking home and these two guys were smoking. I had my full bag of trash with me and was wondering if they would still litter after seeing me. Yes they did! They dropped them on the ground acting like I wouldn’t see them. I walked over to the cigarette butts, looked at the men, shook my head, and walked away.

I have an HOA for my neighborhood and they pay people to come mow the lawn and maintain the area (AKA CLEANUP THE TRASH). They don’t clean up anything, they just mow right over it creating microplastics. Yesterday I made sure they could see me picking up all the trash they didn’t bother to clean up haha. Here is the bag of trash I picked up! That was all found on my street… just my street. I added some other photos to show my cleanups from the past.

Stop Buying Plastic!

I’ve talked about this many times on the blog, but we don’t need to buy so much plastic. When you buy soda get the aluminum cans instead of plastic bottles. Aluminum can be recycled infinitely unlike plastic. When you buy sauces, get the glass version instead of plastic and then BAM you have a jar to reuse. I’ve been reusing glass jars to propagate my plants! I would also like to add that anything made from bamboo is great because that’s a renewable resource and there’s no harsh chemicals unlike plastic. It’s so easy to avoid plastic and we don’t have to be so reliant on that material. Remember that plastic is yucky!

Upcycling!

Since glass can’t be recycled everywhere it’s best to reuse it if you can (check if glass is recyclable in your area). Like I said I’ve upcycled glass jars into a propagation station for my plants! Hopefully they grow more roots soon so I can plant them in soil (picture below)! Another thing you could do is turn a soup can into a pencil holder or a plant holder like I did. I poked some holes at the bottom with a nail and a hammer for drainage! Drainage is super important because if water doesn’t drain out then it can cause root rot and other issues for the plant. There’s plenty of creative ways to upcycle things! Upcycling is a great way to save money as well!

I kind of babbled today, but I hope you still enjoyed it! Go out and clean up trash. It will make you feel good about yourself and the planet will thank you! REMEMBER EARTH DAY IS EVERYDAY. Thank you for reading and I hope you have a great rest of your day/weekend/month! ❤ 🙂

Love, Maija.