The fashion industry is a big polluter. It affects many things like water pollution, water consumption, oceans, waste, air pollution and many more things. How does fashion affect the environment?

☞ Water pollution
Textile manufactures tend to be built in countries that don’t have environmental laws that allow them to dump untreated water from the factory into rivers. The toxic wastewater can contain mercury. This affects not only the wildlife who rely on the river but people too. Water is also one of the things that WE NEED, if we run out of it we die.

☞ Water consumption
Did you know that the fashion industry uses 1.5 trillion litres of water a year? That’s a lot of water! Unlike water pollution, we can’t clean water that has been used up.

Oceans
Every single time we wash a synthetic garment hundreds of microfibers get released and make their way to the oceans. The microfibers are ingested by small marine life, introducing it*** into the ecosystem.

☞ Waste
72% of clothing takes up to 200 years to decompose. This is a very long time. I like to donate my clothing but sadly this only happens to 15% of clothing. The clothing sits in a landfill and takes up space that we can’t use for other things like, farms and housing. Some clothing companies are making clothes so cheap that they can be worn twice and thrown out. These are filling up landfills very quickly.

☞ Air Pollution
The fashion industry on top of all of this contributes to air pollution which leads to climate change. The production, manufacturing, and transportation of clothing make up 10% of the global carbon emissions.

All of these things to do with the fashion industry contribute to bigger problems like climate change, water shortages, and unsustainable amounts of waste. I am in high school and I get it. Brands like American Eagle, Pink and Garage are must-haves in your wardrobe but those brands are major contributors to these issues. Below are some ideas that can help you save the world and some money.

☞ Cut your jeans into shorts. If your jeans are getting a bit too short in the legs? Cut them into shorts. The great thing about this is you can decide how short you want them to be. I love to do this because I don’t want to spend like 47$ on a pair of American Eagle shorts when I have jeans that are too short for me. I just cut them and it looks like I bought them from the store.

☞ Shop at thrift stores. You can find some really good deals on main brand clothes. Its also like 75% cheaper than what you would find at the store. I really like to go with friends because everyone can go no matter how much money you make. It’s also a small thing that helps the environment.

☞ Donate your clothes to a thrift store. Some thrift stores like Plato’s Closet offer you money in exchange for your main brand clothing. This is a really cool thing because you make money for giving someone the clothes that don’t fit you anymore. It’s Awesome! Also, you’re contributing to the environment at the same time by not throwing out your clothing.

All of these things are really easy to do. Most of them actually save you money. It’s good to be aware of what the fashion industry is contributing to so people like myself can be more aware of what we buy. It’s going to be our ideas that make a better more sustainable fashion industry for our home. Earth.

Earth Hour is on March 30th, 2019 at 8:30 pm. This event is to raise environmental awareness, such as climate.started in 2007 and around 188 countries participated in this event last year. An hour without electricity can be hard, for everyone. So I’m going to show you what you can do in that hour.

1) Go Outside

There are so many things you can do outside. You can hike, play with sparklers, and so much more. My favourite thing to do is go on a hike, and I love to hike on earth hour. I can see a few more stars than normal and it really makes me aware of everything that lives outside of my screen. I also am not tempted by my electronics, because I don’t need to bring them on a hike.

2) Pamper yourself

Use this time to have some you time. I like to have a bath and do a face mask. I don’t get a lot of time to do this because I have school work to and my phone gets in the way. THE “GOOD” Face masks can be expensive like 7-10 dollars per mask. It’s crazy! You can just as easily make one at home for half the price. A simple easy mask you can make at home is a honey mask.
What you will need:
Raw Honey
Paper towel (cut out a face shape with eye holes)

Steps:

1)
Heat up a kettle. When the kettle is heating up I like to put the honey into a small glass bowl.
2)
Once the kettle is hot pour it into a bowl. Make sure to pour the water is slightly below the glass bowl so it doesn’t overflow into the honey. The hot water around the glass bowl warms up the honey.
3)
Once the honey has about 5-10 minutes to warm up. Pour half onto a plate, place the paper towel onto the honey and pour the other half on top of the mask. Let that sit for about 2-3 mins. Sometimes I have to add a bit of hot water to the honey to make it flow better. If you feel like it’s not flowing to well.*** I like to start running the water for my bath at this time.
4)
Gently take the mask out of the honey and smooth over face. You’re ready to relax.

Read a Book

What else could be better than sitting in candlelight reading a good book? I don’t read that much, so Earth hour gives me time to read. Some of my favourite books are The Skeleton Tree and Regenesis. I will give you a short description of each.

The Skeleton Tree by Iain Lawrence
The Skeleton Tree is about 2 brothers who get stranded on an island and need to get back home. I really enjoyed this book because the characters were well developed and they both had their flaws. It also brings you into a man vs nature environment that I really liked.

Regenesis by Eric Walters

The book Regenesis is about life after an asteroid hit Earth. Kids are launched into space on a mission to orbit the moon until it’s safe to return to Earth. This book is really interesting because it shows how much we depend on the planet to sustain us. All the characters in the book were children and you got to see them age over the mission time.

There are so many fun things that you can do without the internet or electricity. So on March 30th at 8:30 put down the electronics and have some fun.

I really enjoy nature. It gives me a place to relax and relieve stress these are some of my all-time favorite things to do in nature.

ONE – Hike

Hiking is something I love and do quite often. Its something I can do by myself, with my family, or with my friends. Plus hiking benefits me, how amazing! Hiking helps with improved positive mood, enhanced relationships with friends and family, lower body fat, and a better quality of life overall. I have been on many hikes but my favourite is right in my neighbourhood at Riverside. You can do so many things, there is a park, birds to feed, and it’s totally free. All you need to go there is two legs and a heartbeat.

TWO – Snorkeling

Depending on where you live, snorkelling may cost more money than hiking but it’s so weird to enter a whole different atmosphereXXXX and experience what the world is like underwater. In grade 7, I went to Hawaii before the lava came through. When I was there our rental home was steps away from lava heated tide pools, since the tidepools were heated by the lava the coral was very bright and fish were plentiful. When the tide came in, it created a current that would pull you back to the shore, when in the current different fish and coral speed past. It was so cool to see underwater nature something that we normally don’t get to see and to think that we know more about space than our oceans.

THREE – Camping

Summertime is one of the best times of the year. No school and no homework to keep you busy, just you and two months of friends ahead. Honestly, that gets boring after a little while. I love to take a break and camp, it gives me time to get off of Instagram and enjoy the outdoors without it being boring.

FOUR – Sailing

This summer my family and I took sailing lessons. It was really fun and I would definitely do it again. I really liked to steer the boat, and tip the boat. Tipping the boat was actually one of my favourite parts of learning. When the boat tipped you had to climb up on the side and pull it down, this for some reason it was really fun to me. Did you know the wind doesn’t push you when you’re on a sailboat? It actually pulls you! The sail has the same effect on the wind as an airplane wing. I thought this was really cool.

FIVE – Surfing
In Canada, there are few spots to surf but there are lots of places outside of Canada to surf. It was really cool to learn how to balance on a board and be able to cruise to the beach. My favourite part was watching my parents fail. It was really amusing to see my parents catch a wave and try to stand up on the board, just to fall down .0005 seconds later. This experience was one of the best in my life, I hope to do it again sometime.

These things are great things to do. They have a variety of prices but every one is worth the time and the money you spend.

By 2050 the world’s population is expected to reach 10 billion. This means that by 2050 the earth will need to feed 3 billion more people. Meat is not very sustainable. It takes 1,799 GALLONS of water to produce ONE POUND of beef and 576 GALLONS of water to produce ONE POUND of pork. On top of this, cattle take up almost 27% of the world’s landmass and eat loads of grains that could feed millions of people. Meat is just not sustainable. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t eat ANY meat just that eating less would go a long way towards making food more sustainable. I’m going to show you how to make two non-meat dishes that are just as easy as their meat counterpart.

Lentil burger

What you will need:
Can of lentils
2 eggs
One small onion
One clove of garlic
Hot peppers
3/4 cups of bread crumbs

Steps:

Step 1 – Dice hot peppers, onion and garlic

Step 2 – Put drained lentils, cracked eggs, onion, garlic, hot peppers, and bread crumbs in a bowl.

Step 3 – Mix the ingredients thoroughly. I like to mix them with a spoon but you can mix them in a mixing bowl or with your hands

Step 4 – Shape patties out of the mix

Step 5 – OIl a pan and put on medium heat. Cook patties for 5-7 minutes on each side or until toasty brown.

Step 6 – Dress the burger as you wish. You can do the traditional burger toppings, tomato, cheese, pickles, etc

This dish could be any kind of meat substitute, not just a burger. You could easily make it into meatballs (roll it into balls instead of patties and bake in oven)

Eggplant schnitzel

What you will need:
Eggplant
Egg
Flour
Bread crumbs
Garlic powder
Chilli powder
Black pepper

Steps:

Step 1 – Peel and cut the eggplant into one centimetre thick slices.

Step 2 – Sprinkle salt on the eggplant slices and let it sit for 30 mins or until water droplets forms on the eggplant. This helps draw the water out of the eggplant so it is not as watery when you eat it. Wipe the water off of the eggplant with a clean paper towel.

Step 3 – Set out bread crumbs, flour and raw eggs (scrambled) on to three separate plates or bowls. Mix black pepper, chilli powder and garlic powder into the flour.

Step 4 – Coat the eggplant in the flour mixture, then dip the eggplant in the eggs and finally cover the eggplant in bread crumbs and set aside.

Step 5 – OIl a pan and cook on medium heat for 10 minutes on each side or until toasty brown

Step 6 – Eat. You could serve this as a replacement of pork schnitzel, on top of pasta as eggplant parmesan, or even eat it on a sandwich.

These recipes are so simple and are really easy to make. My family eat meat and I can throw these easy meals together when they aren’t willing to cook vegetarian. Eating less meat will greatly benefit our planet.

Nature does a lot of things for mankind, But how do we repay it? It is estimated that by 2050 there will be more plastic in the ocean than fish. That’s more than 5 trillion pieces of plastic. I was not aware of this growing issue until I traveled to Hawaii and went snorkeling. I saw a reef with tons of plastic in it. The fish were still going about their everyday lives. Our lives upgraded but their lives downgraded. So WHAT is happening to all the plastics?

» “Of the 8.3 billion metric tons that has been produced, 6.3 billion metric tons has become plastic waste. Of that, only nine percent has been recycled. The vast majority—79 percent—is accumulating in landfills or sloughing off in the natural environment as litter.” A quote from National Geographic

» Animals are dying from eating plastics.  The plastics kill 100,000 marine animals a year and one million sea birds

» People don’t know the proper ways to recycle plastics. The plastics end up in landfills and the wind can blow them into nearby oceans, parks, forests.

As people who live on Earth and made this mess in the first place, we need to take action by using fewer plastics in our daily lives. A little bit can go a long way YOU can help by using reusable bags instead, glass containers, reusable water bottles, becoming educated on properly recycling the plastics you do use.

This ongoing issue is being pushed aside because this is not affecting the people NOW but it will very soon if we don’t start to tweak our living habits to be more sustainable to the many species including US that live here on earth. YOU can help this change. ONE person will make a difference.

Parker, Laura. (2018). A whopping 91% of plastics is not recyclable. National Geographic

https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/07/plastic-produced-recycling-waste-ocean-trash-debris-environment/