I Feel Like I\'m Failing the Earth

This past summer I feel like I have been the worst advocate for the Earth. Of course this month is Plastic Free July and I have been really trying to eat at my house more so I can avoid all the trash that comes along with eat out and such, but then there are weekends like this past weekend that other people are ordering for me or we\’re in a rush or I\’ve forgotten my reusables so that plastic straw or fork is convenient (of course) but also necessary. No one wants to see me eating a salad with my hands at a nice little party. Unfortunately, this forgetting has happened so many times this summer, I stopped counting the number of times I slipped up.

Additionally as I was as the beach this weekend, I couldn\’t help but notice all the trash in the trash cans. (I truthfully didn\’t see much outside of the receptacles.) But there were so many beer cans and food scraps that could be recycled or composted, but the beach town we were in didn\’t even seem to offer such a program. (As a result, I did ask my family to collect some of there cans so I could bring them home and dispose of them properly.) But the lack of recycling programs is common across the the nation. (Luckily the trash aspect is only the tip of the ice berg as far as climate change is concerned.)

To go along with my failures, I\’ve also been feeling a little bit of eco-anxiety, which a lot of the sustainable based bloggers that I follow on instagram have been touching a lot on lately. (I found this post to be particularly helpful.) Taylor Strickland (@taylorsharai on instagram) even posted the other day about losing motivation because the earth is falling apart. And honestly, I feel that. In the future, I\’d like to have a career, a family, a \”successful\” life, but sometimes it\’s hard even to look towards that as a goal and look forward to this point in my life if the scientists and the news keep telling me that the world as we know it is going to end.

So where does this leave me? It leaves me scared, but it also makes me motivated to put the word out there and inspire others to change their ways. It reminds that changing my ways comes in steps. The first step is to use what you have. And that\’s what I\’m doing. I can\’t feel insecure about still using shampoo out of a plastic bottle because it\’s not empty and it would be more of a waste to just throw it away. I can\’t feel bad for using a plastic spoon when I forgot mine, because usually I have one on that I do use. I can\’t dislike myself for buying a new beauty product because I know that I\’m doing other things to diminish my footprint. I have to remind myself that at least I\’m doing something. There are so many people out there in denial of climate changes or how their habits affect the earth.

Of course this whole idea of sustainability for me started with looking at my trash, it\’s grown to where I\’m looking at other habits and deciding to walk if I can (which isn\’t super safe or the best option where I live). Because yesterday was Earth Overshoot Day, I decided to figure out what my own overshoot day is and how many planets we would need if everyone lived just like me. The answer 3.1 Earths and my personal overshoot day is April 27th… Yikes. But because of this, I can now see where my bigger issues are and what I need to cut back on.

My biggest issue is \”mobility.\” I travel a lot. Of course living out of state for college and living in a city that isn\’t particularly walking/biking friendly doesn\’t help. Additionally, when I travel, I typically have to fly. If I removed the amount for flying that I do, the number of Earths dropped down to 2.5. Because my family is so widespread and traveling is something I enjoy, it\’s not something I can remove too much of from my life. So I decided to look into other aspects in my life. The first being my diet. The website suggests cutting out meat, which I did for a while but have really been struggling with the past few months being home.

So that\’s my next goal I guess, working on cutting out meat a little bit more. And finishing up the products I already own. And trying to stay positive when all I tend to hear are the negative aspects of the climate.

Until next time…

Much Love,

Jac