Susatainable living is about smart consumerism

I recently read an Aspen Times article about the owners or EcoRoots, Antonia Pitica and Alin Turcea, who saw the issue of overusing plastic in their everyday lives and decided to do something to change the way they live their lives. They believe "By removing plastics from everyday choices, individuals have the power to make a collective difference for the planet. Some everyday items made of plastic are: grocery bags, to-go cups, water bottles, and toothbrushes.

EcoRoots started to think how they could substitute these products with reusable ones that care about the sustainability of the planet, also while educating the public about the importance of everyday choices. EcoRoots is creating this minimalist, go green brand that considers future generations. EcoRoots believes they have an obligation to future generations to address pollution and climate change issues. These are issues our society faces but little to none change their action in order to help the situation.

As I've stated in this blog before, it's all about taking little steps to a more sustainable lifestyle, it's not a change that'll happen overnight. Most of the time it just takes one step in order to change your lifestyle completely. The founders of EcoRoots started their sustainable lifestyle journey by starting to bring reusable bags to the grocery store, which turned into trying to avoid plastic wrapped products, and switched to biodegradable bamboo toothbrushes.

I enjoyed reading this article because it reiterates a lot of points I've made throughout this blog about changing to a sustainable lifestyle. The main points are small steps will create big changes and it's not a process that happens overnight. If you are someone who wants to live a more sustainable lifestyle, think about your everyday routine and how much plastic and waste you create, then try to reduce that waste a little bit with one change tomorrow and make it a habit.

How coronavirus impacts the environment

Over the past three weeks, the only thing people have heard about is the coronavirus pandemic that is sweeping the world causing countries and businesses to shut down in order to contain the virus. The coronavirus has stopped air and ground travel in regions around the world, which is actually reducing carbon emissions in the atmosphere. Without factories and travel, the pollution levels around the world have been decreasing.

Even though the reduction in emissions is helping reduce pollution, it's not enough to shift climate change. In other points of history, economic slowdowns such as WW2 and the Great Depression, these events have made slight changes in emissions but haven't changed the overall trend.

As economic activity has slowed, the air quality in Europe and China has been temporarily improved, finally China can see blue skies. The way millions of people have changed their daily lives shows how it's possible to do help climate change. Some officials believe the pollution reduction in China has saved more lives than the coronavirus has taken. According to a Stanford scientist, the reduction in air pollution have helped saved over 77,000 lives in China either under the age of five or over 70.

The coronavirus is scary due to the unknown and how it spreads, people are going to grocery stores to stock up on food and toilet paper which has brought up another environmental issue of wasting food or resources. Due to the pandemic, the population is more aware that it's important to not waste food or resources because supplies are low more people are becoming self-aware of how much they waste.

The virus is forcing us to change the way we live our lives, we can't just go to the grocery store and expect everything to be stocked, it's forcing everyone to look at how they live their lives and forces them to make changes in order to help the environment by reducing waste and pollution.

This is an opportunity to act and drastically change the way we live our lives in order to help the environment. There are lessons to be learned socially we can easily change and it can have great health benefits. Improving air quality and reducing pollution will enhance everyone's life.