Investing in our planet: Individual Action
As another Earth Day rolls around, it’s easy to get disheartened by the amount of actions and investments promised that either don’t - or take too long to - come to fruition. That’s why this Earth Day, and every day, I’m reminding myself of the importance of individual action, and the cumulative effect of daily climate-positive choices.
These daily choices, or micro-investments; like going the extra mile to save and recycle awkward Tetra Pak containers, filmy plastics and small scraps of foil, are just some of the ways we can choose to invest in our planet.
Investing doesn’t have to be money, we can invest time and effort too, and though our individual actions are a great place to start, it’s incredible what can happen when communities come together to jointly invest their time, knowledge, skills and effort into climate-positive action.
Though I now freelance for Avery & Brown remotely, I did attend university in Farnham, and was involved in the early days of the
Farnham Repair Café - a fantastic and really fun climate-positive community event.
Repair cafés can be found throughout the EU and the UK and are an amazing initiative for diverting waste from landfill and pooling together key skills to support individuals.
There are similar groups that exist that, instead of fixing existing items, allow members of the community to hire household items from camera equipment to lawnmowers, sewing machines, and much more. The network of these is called the Library of Things - my closest is in Plymouth, and is called Borrow Don’t Buy - and is a fantastic way to not only save money on an individual basis, but save the world from more *stuff*- because let’s be real, do we need more *stuff*?!
Sticking to my local haunts, just a short ferry ride across the Tamar river from Plymouth is the Rame Peninsula, the South Eastern tip of Cornwall, where
Rame Peninsula Beach Care (RPBC) operates. This volunteer-led charity runs monthly beach cleans, attracting between 30 and 60 additional volunteers for each event who remove hundreds of bags full of marine litter (mostly plastics, let’s be honest) each year.
The RPBC works with local artists to produce sculptures and works of art created using the materials found during the beach cleans, most of which can’t be recycled. By doing this, and through talks and presentations for schools and various groups, the RPBC raises awareness for the plight of marine animals, and the threats they face.
As someone who loves to spend time in nature, in Wales, the Peak District, the South West and all the way up to Scotland, I am frequently saddened to see litter in nature. Picking up and properly disposing of the litter of others is just another small but impactful choice we can all make to have a positive impact.
This is the exact premise behind TrashFreeTrails, set up by mountain biker Dom Ferris whose dream is to see us all work together so that we can enjoy rubbish-free biking and hiking trails. Ferris was no stranger to this sort of initiative when he set it up, as his background is with Surfers Against Sewage, who, amongst other things, run beach cleanups much like RPBC.
TrashFreeTrails has now grown to include the
Trash Mob Academy, a six week programme designed to teach young people to ride bikes, while also educating them about the worldwide issue of single use plastics and their effects.
As Ferris and the Trash Mob are well aware, outside of our individual impact, one of the key areas of climate activism is educating and supporting the next generation, to help them invest in the planet that will be theirs, long after it’s ours.
A young teen in Toxteth, Liverpool, understood the importance of investing in the planet from an early age. Khan Odita, at age 13, embarked on a project to transform a fly-tipping hotspot near his home into a community garden. Now 15, his goal is to make it a “mindful space” that he hopes will benefit those without gardens in the community. Because of the actions of one young person, the community has come together, creating the Mulgrave Street Action Group in order to receive funding for the project - an amazing example of the weight of one person's actions.
So all is not lost, despite what the news might say, and how we might sometimes feel.
There are so many ways we can all invest our time and effort in planet-positive ways, be it through joining in with a repair cafés, borrowing instead of buying, picking up trash in the outdoors, cultivating a community garden - or anything else you can think of!
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