What does it mean to be an environmentally friendly person? For many, this means recycling your trash, turning off the lights when you leave the room, or using an energy-efficient car.
These are all great ways to make your mark on the environment, but at the end of the day, there’s only so much one person can do to mitigate pollution and destruction of the natural world around them. Fortunately, Canada has made strides in recent years to preserve its environment and protect its plant and animal species from destruction and extinction. Here are ten ways you can do your part to help preserve the environment in Canada.
Reduce Your Carbon Footprint
For as long as humans have been around, we’ve polluted and degraded our natural environment. Now is a great time to change that dynamic. Here are 10 ways you can reduce your carbon footprint and help clean up Mother Nature’s air.
Compost – Recycle – Reuse
If you’re making a concerted effort to preserve the environment, it’s worth checking with your municipality and learning about its waste management services. Some communities have compost programs that encourage residents to separate organic material and convert it into fertilizer.
Composting is also a great way for you to reduce your waste. Many municipalities provide blue bins for recycling and green bins for composting, so check with your local government before throwing anything away!
Turn Off The Water While You Brush
Most Canadians use between 30 and 50 gallons of water a day, but there are some steps you can take to cut back on your usage. Switching off your taps while you brush your teeth or shave is an easy way to reduce waste. It may seem like a minor change, but it can have big benefits for the environment. If every Canadian did it, we could save more than $600 million worth of water each year. That’s enough to fill over 1 million swimming pools! To learn more about how you can preserve our country’s natural resources, visit: www.environmentaldefence.ca/waterwaste
Buy In Bulk
There’s always a debate going on about whether or not buying something in bulk is cheaper than getting it at regular-sized portions. And it’s true—you may have seen foods where individually packaged items are less expensive per pound than if you buy that same food in bulk.
Leave No Trace
To preserve our lands, forests and parks for future generations of Canadians, we should leave no trace. This means following certain rules while camping or hiking so as not to do lasting damage. Here are ten ways you can help preserve our natural spaces.
Plant A Tree
Planting a tree is a simple and rewarding way to start preserving our environment. The many benefits of trees include cleaning air, improving water quality, protecting biodiversity, creating habitat for wildlife and reducing erosion. Planting trees also improves our health by lowering stress levels, lowering heart rates and increasing overall happiness. If you want to preserve our environment, plant a tree today!
Get Rid Of Junk Mail
Believe it or not, your mailbox is one of your biggest pollution culprits. Every envelope, flyer and magazine produces a small amount of waste, but when that’s added up across the country it amounts to a massive strain on our landfills. If you’re feeling overwhelmed by junk mail, start by sorting through it: get rid of anything you don’t need. Then take it a step further and look into using paperless billing.
Eat Less Meat
Livestock farming is a serious threat to biodiversity, both locally and globally. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that livestock contributes directly or indirectly to 18 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, making it humanity’s second-largest contribution after energy. Livestock also causes rampant air and water pollution and land degradation—all of which ultimately contribute more carbon dioxide into our atmosphere.
Recycle Your Christmas Lights
If you have Christmas lights up and want to remove them, take them back where you bought them and ask for a refund or exchange. You might be surprised how much money you’ll get back! And if not, at least you’ve saved some waste from going into a landfill. Make sure that when you put your lights out at curbside that they aren’t tangled up in each other so that they can be easily sorted by people collecting them.
Drive Smarter
Our cars have gotten bigger, faster, and more powerful. A recent survey from Driving Test Tips found that 40% of respondents felt safer when driving a larger vehicle.
But when it comes to overall safety on Canadian roads, bigger isn’t always better—in fact, statistics show that smaller vehicles are much safer for drivers. Before you make your next car purchase, consider these stats
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