It’s proven that we only have about 12 years to reverse the environmental damage we have caused. In this critical time we all need to do our absolute best to produce as little waste as possible and clean up this mess we’ve made. Although this is an urgent matter that requires big changes, little changes in your daily routine can make a huge difference, so here’s a quick list of actions that are extremely beneficial to our planet. Change starts with us.

1. Always recycle, reuse, and repurpose: Whether its a bottle, can, or even an old cell phone, find a safe and reliable way to recycle it. This can drastically reduce the amount of waste dumped into landfills each year.
2. Eat locally, or grow your own food as much as you can: Doing this saves all the energy used to transport that product, and knowing where and how one’s food is produced helps the consumer make more health conscious and green decisions, not to mention it’s nice to support your local businesses!
3. Try vegetarian day at least one day a week: Cutting even just a few days of meat consumption a week can help reduce greenhouse gases being emitted into the atmosphere by not supporting the meat industry. It takes 2,500 gallons of water to produce a single pound of beef and each hamburger that comes from animals on ex-forestry ground is responsible for the destruction of fifty-five square feet of forest.
4. Don’t waste napkins and paper: Take one instead of a handful. Are you really that much of a disaster you need 10 napkins to eat your taco?! Single use papers make up more than 25% of solid waste in landfills; the production of paper results in air and water pollution, and has a huge impact on deforestation.
5. Rethink your water consumption: Invest in reusable water bottle, or coffee cup/thermos. Don’t even think about using one-use plastic bottles. Plastic creates giant floating landfills in our ocean, suffocating sea life and choking the oceans ability to absorb CO2 from the atmosphere, speeding up climate change. This plastic pile of garbage stretches farther than twice the size of the united states, so unless we want to die with our ocean, we gotta get our stuff together!
6. Plant your own trees: Trees produce oxygen and take in CO2 (which we have way to much of and is a huge contributor to global warming). Plus they are such an important part of our ecosystem. In a study done by Yale, they discovered that if we planted 1.2 trillion trees we could cancel out a decade of CO2 admissions.
7. Carpool and use cruise control: Cruise control will help to improve your mileage by at least by 15%, and paired with regular carpooling, helps save the environment, gasoline, and your wallet.
8. Ditch the plastic straws: Come on people save the turtles and drink out of a cup like a normal person, or invest in a nice reusable and recyclable straw.
9. Turn off the lights when you’re not in the room: Lighting that emits too much light or shines when and where it’s not needed is wasteful. Wasting energy has huge economic and environmental consequences.
10. Choose matches over lighters: Matches are disposable and lighters are not; plus they require lighter fluid, which is no bueno for the environment. Lighters may be hot sh*t but not as hot as the north and south pole are getting, so really steer clear of lighters and save the polar bears!
11. Donate and buy second hand: Mass production is a huge problem in the world. We have way more than we need product-wise, and the production of these products puts more CO2 and pollution in the atmosphere.
12. Don’t ever use plastic bags, or at least reuse them; cloth bags are way better and look cooler. Plastic takes 10-1000 years to decompose; this plastic fills our landfills and oceans polluting and killing the environment.
13. Walk or bike; don’t drive: This may be hard in an area like Mendo depending on where you live but walk as much as possible, and really try to not make any unnecessary driving trips anywhere. Save yourself a little extra cash money and get some nice exercise.
14. Make an effort to choose eco-friendly products: Where you put your money makes all the difference. Supporting eco friendly products and companies is better for the environment and helps to spread awareness.
15. Think about getting a beehive: Great investment; we gotta help save the bees and getting a beehive will make the flowers on your property bloom and grow. Bees are an essential part of our ecosystem, so we gotta do anything we can to save the bees.
16. Do full loads of laundry to not waste water on half loads: Half loads of laundry are not only inefficient but extremely wasteful of water and energy.
17. Avoid purchasing candys or foods that are individually wrapped: Common sense, dude! That’s just so much plastic you’re throwing away, just shop bulk.
18. Solar panels? heck yeah: Huge energy saver. Harnessing the power of the sun or other sources like water and wind are all extremely beneficial for the environment.
19. Compost: Give your garden a good breakfast; coffee grounds, veggies, fruits and eggshells are ideal for composting.

Spread the knowledge and educate. It is extremely important that people are educated and warned about the state of our planet and what everyone can do to help clean up our world. We have the resources.  We have the technology. We just have to actually use them. Everything counts! We’re not to far gone yet, but we’re getting close. This is a time for jurassic change and motivation!