This Thursday marks the 51st international Earth Day, and it is more important than ever to fight for change. Climate change and pollution reach irreversible levels. If action is not taken, we will lose the earth that keeps us alive. You as an individual hold power; your voice and actions, no matter how small, can help create a considerable change. The theme of this year’s Earth Day is ‘Restore Our Earth’, so here are a few small things you can do to be a change-maker and restore the earth:
Develop your Green Thumb
Over the past few centuries, Australia has lost an enormous amount of native flora due to invasive species and the destruction of natural habitat. This Earth Day, head to your local nursery or sign up for the Queensland Governments free native plants program and get some native plants for your backyard!
Go Plogging
A great way to simultaneously improve your health and the health of the environment is plogging – simply picking up litter while jogging. There are plenty of plogging groups around Brisbane or you can go plogging by yourself; either way your body and the environment will thank you!
Start Saving and Recycling your Bottles and Cans
Most states in Australia offer container recycling schemes, where you can return any containers with a refund mark for up to 10c. Get an old box and start collecting containers and deposit them at refund points to make a tidy profit and ensure they are properly recycled.
Meatless Mondays
Livestock accounts for a surprisingly large portion of greenhouse gas emission. Going meatless for just one day a week can help reduce your carbon footprint and lessen the demand for environmental resources.
Start a Worm Farm
Worms are incredibly misunderstood creatures; they work hard to keep our earth healthy and maintain a healthy ecosystem. Starting a worm farm is affordable and can help you recycle your food scraps and create healthy soil for your garden.
Also, try your hand at reducing your environmental impact by shopping second-hand. Opting for used clothes over new has been proven to reduce the environmental impact by limiting CO2 emissions and the use of pesticides and fertilizers and reducing the waste of billions of litres of water that would have been needed to generate new clothes.
The Environment Collective is putting on a Secondhand clothing stall this Earth Day! All clothing has been donated by other QUT students.
There will also be a number of stalls for QUT students selling their wares too!
You can find it between 11 am to 1 pm on Lumpy Lawn at Gardens Point Campus on Thursday 22nd of April.
Check out the event page for more details.
