Five things I'm doing to help save the planet

I've been off steem for a while, and I noticed this #five4theplanet thing by @pennsif - I thought perhaps this would be a good opportunity to look at what I do already, and what I could do in future.

1) Using a refillable water bottle

I used to just buy multipacks of bottled water to take to work. That was a double whammy - the plastic of the bottle plus the plastic of the multipack wrapper. So I bought a sturdy, reusable water bottle a week or so ago (which I should have done much longer ago). I've already saved 2 multipacks' worth of bottles.

2) Reducing toilet flushes

If it's yellow, let it mellow. If it's brown, flush it down. A simple idea to help save the planet :)

3) Making choices differently

You may know that I am a big advocate for privacy. I don't think it's right that we should be spied on all the time for commercial reasons. So it may surprise you that I have decided to give up the privacy concious search engine DuckDuckGo for Ecosia, a search engine that plants trees.
I'm beginning to realise that we're going to have to give up things we so desperately want for the betterment of humanity. I think that's what's making progress so slow - people don't want to change. They're perfectly comfortable with what they've got, thank you very much. But if that's the way some of us act, then all of us won't be very comfortable for much longer.

4) Reuse more

I've been thinking more about what I throw away, and realised that a lot of it can be reused. A cardboard box, for example, could be a shopping list, or a mouse pad. Or you can give your old clothes to a charity shop to be worn again. You can say you recycle and you're doing your bit, but if you reuse before you recycle then you're doing even better.

5) Slowly sliding away from meat

Meat is a big part of climate change, much bigger than I originally thought. So I've decided I'm going to try to eat less meat. It will be hard - almost everything I eat has meat in it, I now realise - but I've already had some small victories.

Final considerations

I can't fix climate change. Nothing I do will solve it. But it puts a dent in it. And the bigger the dent, the closer we are to a solution. And the greater the number of dents, the closer we get to a solution.
This is about us. Changes that we can all collectively make to help. We can't do it alone, but the stronger the message and the further it travels, the better.
Feel free to share some tips in the comments below :)

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