If you’ve been around for a while, you know that I PREACH small actions. Yes, they truly matter! But, what are the biggest and best actions we can take as individuals to save the planet? Which of our actions has the best impact? Let’s find out!

Eat fewer animal products

Hey, don’t click away! I’m not saying everyone has to be vegan. In fact, I’m only about 98% vegan myself. I make mistakes with labels, I accept the gift of chocolates and pastries from friends and family, and sometimes, restaurants don’t have vegan options. The point is reduction.

It’s far better for every single person to cut out just a bit of meat, dairy, and eggs throughout the week than for a small number of people to be 100% vegan. So, start small. Maybe try just one vegan meal per week. Then, see if it can’t become one vegan meal per day. Maybe you try full vegetarianism or pescatarianism first. You get the idea.

Perhaps you’re in the camp of “I could go vegan if it weren’t for cheese,” then, keep the cheese! If you can cut out beef, eggs, chicken, pork, and everything else, that’s amazing. Keep the cheese if that helps keep you sane. That reduction has a huge impact!

But why? Well, it takes a lot of food to feed animals just to kill them for us to eat. A 1000-pound cow would eat about 20-30 pounds of food per day. Meanwhile, a human eats around 2-4 pounds of food per day. So, that 20-30 pounds of cow food could feed 5-15 humans! No, I know we don’t eat cow food, but we could use that LAND to grow human food. It really comes down to land use. Cows require a lot of land to live and they require a lot of land to grow their food. This leads to deforestation; habitat loss; more emissions to grow, harvest, manufacture, and ship their food; and so forth. You can learn more in-depth here.

Drive less

Speaking of emissions, it really is important to lower our own emissions. So, start big with your biggest emitter: driving. I know, not everyone can fully give up their car…I don’t! So, go car-lite. Become less reliant on your car. This is easier said than done, I know. I’ve lived in very rural places until now and I am lucky to live somewhere so walkable (here are the benefits to a walkable community). Walk where you can, bike where you can, work from home, or simply just carpool!

If you and 5 coworkers or classmates all start carpooling, everyday you get 4 cars off the road. That will also cut each of your gasoline bills by 1/5 if you each drive 1 day of the week instead of 5 and you can also use that time to take a nap, read a book, get some work done, or just build community with your friends.

We explored this last week with how much money a zero waste life saves me, but the average American drives 13,500 miles per year. By giving up your car, you can reduce that many emissions and save about $2000 on gas and $1000 on maintenance per year. The EPA estimates around 400 grams of CO2 are emitted per mile making that average 13,500 miles 2.16 million kilograms of CO2 emissions per year!

Simply use fewer fossil fuels in other ways

Again, I know not everyone can just give up their car, so reduce your reliance on fossil fuels in other ways. This could look like:

Driving less
Using less plastic (it is made from fossil fuels, after all)
Shopping less (especially online shopping)
Switching your bank to one that does not invest in fossil fuels
If you’re in the market for a new car, try a secondhand EV or hybrid
Conserve energy
Switch your energy provider to one that uses green energy
And more that you can learn about in this video!

Compost

Food waste is a HUGE problem. A fact that I learned in the book Not the End of the World, by Hannah Ritchie, was how much food we overproduce in the world. The average adult human needs about 2,000 calories per day. But we produce enough human food worldwide to feed every single person on the planet over 5,000 calories per day. Yet, people are starving. Where does it go? The landfill.

Food waste in landfills creates methane emissions, which are worse than CO2. The easiest way to avoid sending your food waste to the landfill is to compost it! Composting is easy and can be done in any space. I even did it in an RV, and I am even vermicomposting in an apartment! Here’s how you can start your own compost today.

Put your food scraps in, balance it out with some browns (shredded paper, dried grass, etc), stir it on occasion, and wait for the magic to happen. This natural biodegradation does not create methane. But it does create nutrient-rich fertilizer! This is extra great if you have a garden. If you don’t, offer it up for free to a friend or neighbor!

And prevent food waste in other ways

While I truly believe that everyone can compost in some capacity, it’s not always the easiest. So, let’s just prevent food waste to begin with!

Start with creating a shopping list and actually stick to it. For me, I pick a meal I want to eat, write the ingredients I need, and buy only those items. That way, I have precisely what I need, no more. This isn’t a huge deal with shelf-stable items, but it can create a lot of waste with fresh items.

When you get home, store food properly. Carrots and celery stay the crispiest when stored in a jar of water. Lettuce stores best when washed and in a glass container. I find broccoli lasts much longer when I chop it up and store it in any container. You get the idea. This may take a bit of learning, but the results are so worth it!

When your food looks to be getting bad, this is the time to use it or freeze it. If your bell peppers are a bit wrinkly, your bananas are getting brown, or your carrots are going floppy, use them now before it’s too late! Find a recipe to add them to in the moment, or cut and freeze to use at a later date. The freezer is your best friend for preventing food waste!

And, get creative! Stale bread can be turned into croutons or bread crumbs, brown bananas can be banana bread or smoothies, broccoli stems can be diced and added to any soup or stir fry, apple cores can be kept to make apple cider vinegar, and so much more.

Practice this, and the only thing you’ll be composting are the inedible parts of foods like peels!

Shop secondhand

It’s really pollutive to create an item from scratch. Yes, even eco items. If you need something, consider buying it secondhand instead. Especially the most harmful to create items like tech, diamonds, cotton, and things like that.

Why?

Shopping secondhand means that you get what you need without the creation of a new item. Let’s say it’s a piece of wooden furniture. Now, a tree doesn’t have to grow to reach maturity, be cut down, turned into lumber, assembled, stained or painted, and shipped somewhere. All of the steps in the supply chain are wasteful, and you eliminate all of that by shopping secondhand.

Plus, that item now gets to stay out of the landfill (which landfills are running out of space). It’s a double win AND it’s almost always cheaper for the consumer as well.

Learn more about the importance of shopping secondhand here.

But also shop less

It’s possible to overconsume secondhand goods, too. Yes, it’s better to overconsume while thrifting than it is on Amazon or at the mall, but the less we shop, the less pollution we create. But, this especially goes for how much we are shopping for new.

Be content with what you have! Do you really NEED that new item, or will something in your house do for now?

Try upcycling! Do you really need a new jar, or can you repurpose that pasta sauce jar instead?

Is shopping your hobby? Try a new hobby like reading, crocheting, hiking, sewing, surfing, or whatever interests you.

Learn more about breaking up with overconsumption in this video.

Amplify and spread the word

It’s amazing that you have learned all of this, but we need as many people on board as possible. You’ve probably heard the famous quote (that I paraphrased above in the meat section) that we don’t need a handful of people living zero waste perfectly, we need everyone to live zero waste imperfectly. We don’t need a few perfect environmentalists, we need everyone to care even in the slightest!

So, inspire others. This may look like leading by example, recommending some of your favorite eco books, sharing social media posts to your story, sharing a news article you read, encouraging them to sign a petition or volunteer with you, and things of that nature.

The world will do better when we all care just a little more and do a little bit more good with our actions. So, let’s do it together!

Get politically involved

I understand if you feel like your voice doesn’t matter politically at a time like this. But, it does. Your voice matters a great deal. Recently, I went to a city council meeting. My city was trying to criminalize homelessness. I could’ve said, “ahh, my voice doesn’t matter, I’m not going to go.” In fact, all 200 some people who attended and spoke against this bill could’ve said that. Then, zero people would’ve been there. But, we all realized that no matter how insignificant it feels, our voices DO matter in practice. The bill was not passed!

In that moment, I realized that, no, I may not be able to influence national politics all that much (though I do what I can with my platforms), but I sure as heck influence my local politics. I can go to town halls to eco-fy my cities, I can vote in local and state elections to ensure compost access and library budgets remain high, I can sign local petitions, and things like that. Of course, doing these actions nationally matters, too, but it can be so much more rewarding to see your actions come to fruition much more quickly in your town, county, or state.

So, get registered to vote and be an educated voter. Don’t head to the polls without any information. Research the candidates and figure out who you’re voting for before you show up. Encourage your friends and family to vote for the planet, too. And, don’t forget that this also looks like voting for policy and bills in your area, too.

Your small actions still matter

Now, this is not to discount small things. Your reusable water bottle is great, picking up litter is great, unplugging devices that are not in use is great, but those actions are pennies to the dollar of these other actions. If you have the time, desire, and drive to do these small things, go for it! But if you’re in a position where you need to pick and choose just a few things to focus on at this time, start with the big things. They will make the biggest impact on the individual level.

It’s much more impactful for you to eat one less piece of beef this week than it is for you to shorten your shower by 30 seconds. Both are great actions, but there is a clear winner on environmental benefit.

The point is, you can’t do it all. That’s okay! Simply focus on your energy, time, and money where it matters the most.

If you want to learn more about why these actions are so good for the planet, I highly encourage you to read or listen to Not the End of the World by Hannah Ritchie. That is where the bulk of the inspiration for this post came from!

Let us know the biggest and best actions you take for the planet below, and remember that your small actions truly do make a big difference in the long run :)

Emma

The BEST Things that we Can Do for the Planet as Individuals