Small steps to be environmentally friendly

We are joining the Earth Week in Växjö, a public event to increase knowledge, commitment and pride for Växjö’s sustainability work. In Globala Kronoberg we couldn’t miss this opportunity to bring awareness about the global environmental challenges that we are facing. In this blog post, we explain you small environmentally friendly actions that you can implement in your everyday life.

The recipe to avoid food waste

• Did you know that 1/3 of the food produced in the world is wasted?
• Also, 38% of the total energy consumption in the global food system is used to produce food that is wasted or lost.
• 45% of fruits and vegetables are wasted. It takes 13 liters of water to make a tomato and even more for an avocado: 70 liters! All these resources are used for nothing when the food is wasted.

What can you do about it?

• Use all the parts of the food that you would usually throw, like banana peels. Here you can find a great cake recipe.
• Plan a weekly menu, prepare a shopping list and buy just the food that you need.
• Cook or freeze the food that will go bad soon.
• Put in the front of the fridge or the kitchen cabinets the products that will expire earlier, so you remember to use them.

Your steps count!

• The world generates, each year, 2.01 billion tons of solid waste. A number that is growing. According to a World Bank study, if we continue like this, we will generate 3.4 billion tonnes of solid waste per year by 2025. What to do with all this trash then? To solve this crisis, different options: reuse it, burn it to produce electricity, transform it… Or sculpt it! In Cameroon, the artist Joseph-Francis Sumegne created the 12-meter-tall statue La nouvelle Liberté (New Statue of Liberty) out of collected rubbish. 

What can you do about it?

• Watch this Ted Talk too feel inspired: Why I live a zero waste life.
• Recycle. If you live in Växjö, you contribute to the green fuel, biogas, when we put our food scraps in the brown bags. All organic waste decays and becomes biogas, used for the green biogas buses in Växjö.
• Buy products (cosmetics…) that are recyclable and avoid using plastic (plastic bags, no recyclable bottles…)
• Organize a group clean up. This Tuesday, we organized the #GlobalaPickUpTrash day and, as the hashtag says, we picked up trash on Växjö. We invite you to do this activity at any time. You can share it on the social networks to bring awareness and if you tag us (@globala_kronoberg), we will share it too.
• Avoid buying stuff that you don´t need.
• Buy second hand.
• You can create your own natural cleaning or cosmetic products and save plastic. In this video we explain you how to create an all purposes cleaner.

Do you have more ideas of environmentally friendly actions that we can implement? Write them in the comments.