In 1974, the United Nations created the World Environment Day, in which several countries mobilize to pay attention to environment causes. The first one was “Only One Earth During” in United States, and since then every June 5th a country is chosen to host the theme of the year. This year’s theme is “Beat Air Pollution” and is being hosted by China, once it is the country that most pollute the world, helping to raise awareness of society and large companies.
Based on this mobilization, which is of great importance these days, we separate 5 ways to live more sustainably that can be easily inserted into daily life, helping not only the environment but your health.
- Use Bicycles As Much As Possible
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Since this year’s main agenda is pollution, nothing more than fair than reducing the use of agents that cause damage to the air, like cars and buses. So, cycling can be a good alternative to get around.
In São Paulo, the taxi company 99Taxi offers several bicycles – called Yellow – through the city, encouraging the green locomotion.
- Start Using Metal Straws
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The plastic straws are responsible for several deaths of fish and marine animals, and according to UN researches, 800 marine species suffer from this waste. Keeping that in mind, the metal straws came as a good alternative to this problem, since is possible to reuse it every time and it’s easy to carry in the bag and backpack.
For those who are interested in acquiring, there is an Instagram account called “Canudinho do bem” (@canudinhodobem), from which you can order the straws with wipers and sachets to store.
- Do the Meatless Monday
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All over the world many people are adept of this movement, which consist on not eating meat on mondays. Livestock is one of the activities that spend most water, are 15,500 litres for 1kg of meat, so if every week you do not consume it on Mondays, it is already a great help for the environment.
The German youtuber Edgy Veg (@edgyveg) have many videos showing ideas of what to eat without meat, what helps to get inspired for meals.
- Buy Organic Food
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Agriculture is a very intense practice in many countries, and for the profit to be guaranteed, companies use agrochemicals and various chemicals substances, which modify the product and end up causing many damages to the soil and rivers near the plantations.
Thus, organic products do not use these substances and buying them encourages green plantation and decreases the risk of contamination of soil and water.
- Use Reusable Water Bottles
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We use water bottles every day, and discard them daily is a huge damage to the environment because it accumulates a lot of plastic. For this to be softened, the use of reusable bottles is very welcome and the good part is that they are very easy to find.