#avoid plastic

The condition of our environment is deteriorating day by day — and it has now become a serious and alarming situation for the entire planet. What was once a world filled with lush forests, clean air, and crystal-clear water bodies is now struggling under the weight of pollution, deforestation, and the careless activities of human beings. The truth is hard to ignore — our planet is in danger, and so are we.

🌫️ The Growing Threats to Our Environment

Every year, millions of tons of waste are dumped into oceans, thousands of acres of forests are cut down, and toxic gases are released into the atmosphere. These reckless actions are leading to climate change, global warming, loss of biodiversity, and depletion of natural resources.

Air Pollution – Increasing vehicular emissions, industrial smoke, and the burning of fossil fuels have made the air we breathe poisonous. Major cities are now covered in smog, causing respiratory problems and other health issues.

Water Pollution – Rivers, lakes, and oceans are being contaminated with plastic waste, chemicals, and sewage. Clean drinking water is becoming scarce, affecting both humans and aquatic life.

Deforestation – Trees are being cut down at an alarming rate for urbanization, agriculture, and infrastructure. This leads to soil erosion, loss of habitat, and an imbalance in the oxygen-carbon dioxide cycle.

Climate Change – Rising global temperatures have caused unpredictable weather patterns, floods, droughts, and melting glaciers — threatening all forms of life on Earth.

🌿 Human Activities: The Root Cause

Behind every environmental crisis lies human negligence. Overpopulation, industrialization, and our growing dependency on technology have resulted in unsustainable consumption. People often forget that Earth’s resources are limited. From plastic usage to excessive energy consumption, every careless action contributes to this ongoing destruction.

⚠️ The Alarming Consequences

If the current situation continues unchecked, the consequences will be catastrophic. Rising sea levels may drown coastal cities, agricultural lands may turn barren, and countless species will go extinct. The balance of nature — which sustains life — will collapse.

We are already witnessing these signs:

Heatwaves and wildfires are more frequent than ever.

Freshwater sources are drying up.

Air quality in major cities has reached dangerous levels.

Natural disasters are increasing in intensity.

🌱 Steps Toward a Greener Tomorrow

Despite the grim picture, there is still hope — but only if we act now. Every individual, organization, and government must take responsibility.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle – Minimize waste and use resources wisely.

Plant More Trees – Reforestation is one of the most effective ways to restore balance.

Use Renewable Energy – Switch to solar, wind, or hydropower instead of fossil fuels.

Avoid Plastic – Use biodegradable and eco-friendly products.

Raise Awareness – Educate others about the importance of environmental protection.

🌎 A Call for Collective Action

Saving our environment is not an option — it is a necessity for survival. Governments must enforce stricter environmental laws, industries should adopt eco-friendly practices, and every citizen must contribute in their own way.

Time and again there is the talk of environmental pollution and what devastating effects it has on our habitat earth if we do not do anything about it: Everyday mountains of garbage land in the seas and endanger the animals living there. The earth's resources are still being used up too much and the air is still too heavily polluted. Here are ten simple tips on how we can better protect the environment.

1. Create less waste

To protect the environment, it is very important to drastically reduce the amount of waste produced every day. This can be implemented in very different ways.

You should be careful when shopping to buy a few products that are packed in plastic and rather resort to alternatives in glass containers. Pack your groceries - food, clothing or whatever - preferably in a recyclable cloth bag or backpack instead of grabbing the plastic bag. Avoid using packaging such as to-go cups for coffee, which ends up in the trash immediately after use.

What's also very important: Throw your garbage in the trash and do not just leave it on the street or in a meadow. Distributing the waste in nature not only looks ugly but is also very harmful to plants and animals, especially since plastic can not biodegrade.

2. Reuse things and materials

Generally uses containers that can be reused and materials that can be recycled. So there are companies that ensure that substances can be reused. There, products such as used advertising banners, flags or flags, which are robust in terms of material, are transformed into new products by means of high-quality craftsmanship and thus reused. Tissues of disused textiles or waste can also be recycled and turned into sustainable products.

But you too can reuse some things instead of throwing them away. So less waste for packaging, fruit bowls, and other leftovers as well as old textiles and you have to say goodbye to some of your favorite pieces yet.

Used T-shirts and undershirts are still good to use for work on the house, on the car or in the garden as a rag. The sleeves of old pullovers are suitable as cuffs that warm your wrists in winter.

To collect the plastic waste in the apartment, plastic shopping bags are well suited, which can be used again and again after emptying.

Paper that has been printed incorrectly does not necessarily end up in the garbage, but can serve as a sticky note or be reprinted on the still-white page for printing. The same applies to one-sided printed texts that you no longer need.

3. Consume less

In our company, we have everything available at all times, whether it is food and care products, furnishings or even clothing. This luxury entices you to buy more than you need. And especially the annual trends in furnishings and clothing are very tempting for many.

As these goods must also be transported and produced, CO2 emissions and waste accumulate accordingly. To counter this, you should limit yourself to the things that you really need and use. Wear your clothes longer instead of exchanging them for new ones every year.

4. Sustainable food

When it comes to food, you can easily do something to protect the environment by eliminating fish and seafood from your diet whenever possible. This is useful in two ways: First, it helps to ensure the survival of marine life.

Most of the fish stocks are already overfished or at least threatened by overfishing. On the other hand, there are fewer ways to transport food from the oceans into our fields, which in turn means less fuel consumption of heavy vehicles.

In general, you should keep an eye on where the products come from, which end up in your shopping baskets every week. Prefers to regional food, which has not already been driven several miles and made for enormous fuel consumption, until they finally arrive at the supermarket.

5. Throw away less food

In the supermarket, you can also pay attention to how much you buy and whether it must always be a large supply of everything. This reduces the risk of having to dispose of a lot of food in the garbage later because it has expired.

Because this is what happens daily in many German households and can be avoided by buying only what is actually needed.

6. Save water

Many run the water when they soap or shower their teeth while showering. This unnecessarily consumes a lot of fresh water, which can be avoided. Just turn off the water if you do not need it anyway.

Basically, bathing consumes more water than showering. That's why full baths should be the exception as far as possible, then you are all the more looking forward to it. Using less water not only protects the environment but also your wallet.

7. Drive less

In order to pollute the environment less and to protect the climate, it helps enormously to leave the car now and then. For paths that you can easily walk or cycle, you should definitely do without the car. This saves the air, in the long run, a lot of exhaust gases and saves fuel. Besides, exercise does well and keeps you healthy.

Another way to save the environment is driving ahead. To get off the accelerator early when approaching a traffic light or speed limit also saves a lot of fuel. This effect also occurs when you slow down instead of going full throttle.

Alternatively to the car, you can also use public transport and get you sometimes brought by bus and train to work. Carpooling and car sharing are also good ways to protect the environment and reduce fuel consumption.

8. Save electricity

Take care to use only lamps with LED technology or energy-saving lamps. This significantly reduces the cost of electricity bills and is good for the environment. But there is more. Because electronic devices like the TV, which are turned off, still consume power in standby mode.

You can counteract this by attaching such devices and lamps to multiple sockets with a central switch. If this switch is off, no electricity flows into the devices. This helps you to save a bit of electricity every day.

9. Save heating energy

If you ventilate properly, you can save a lot of heating energy and thus protect the environment. Rip open the windows and balcony doors for a few minutes several times a day instead of letting the windows tilt all day long.

Because the forced ventilation consumes much less energy and prevents mold from forming on the walls of the room because the air humidity can escape better from the rooms.

In order to noticeably reduce heating costs and the environmental impact of CO2, it is enough to turn down the room temperature in the home by just one degree Celsius.

10. Use the fridge properly

In order to use the refrigerator, which is one of the largest power guzzlers, energy-efficient, it should be in the coolest possible place. The refrigerator door should only be opened as long as necessary and food should be allowed to cool to room temperature before you put it in the refrigerator. As a result, he needs less energy to cool things down.

If you go on holiday for a long time and you are not at home, you should switch off the fridge completely to reduce power consumption. For this reason, it is also advisable to defrost the refrigerator when icing has formed.

An inverted butterfly effect. It is, in any case, the consequences of the first "plastic attacks". The principle is simple: customers go to a supermarket to do their shopping and leave all unnecessary packaging inside the store. On June 2nd, 2018, citizens decided to organize an awareness campaign on the overconsumption of plastic in a Parisian supermarket.

"The goal is to make customers aware of the overconsumption of plastic but also to alert supermarkets to the uselessness of all these packagings," says Fanny Vismara, co-organizer of this action. "Above all, it is important to raise awareness among politicians", adds Belgian Frédéric Sioen, who coordinates plastic attack operations around the world via a dedicated Facebook page. The citizen has published a petition so that, in Belgium, politicians legislate and reduce the production of plastic. In Paris too, the organizers want to encourage parliamentarians to act through a petition.

    These actions are inspired by the great idea of ​​English. The first operation of "Plastic attack" took place at the end of March in Great Britain. To draw everyone's attention to the astronomical amount of plastic waste we produce, some 20 customers at a Tesco supermarket in Keynsham, near Bristol, had extracted the purchased products from their packaging and left them there. Result: three full caddies filled with useless plastics. The operation caused a stir and prompted the British brand to lobby to reduce plastic packaging. A petition asking British supermarkets to reduce packaging already brings together 500,000 signatures.

Shortly after, Brussels followed suit with the British and, rebelotte, this time it was the turn of the group Delhaize to make commitments on the reduction of plastic packaging.

"Ridiculous packages" bloom on the canvas

The success of these actions is such that all over the world are preparing "Plastic attacks". Like Paris, many cities will organize next June 2 operations to encourage politicians and citizens to review their habits and stop the consumption of plastic packaging for single use. Thousands of people have already registered in Gant, Belgium, but also in the Netherlands, Canada, Washington, Peru, Spain, Switzerland, India, Australia, South Korea ...

These actions are accompanied by a Greenpeace campaign. Since last month, photos of apples or bananas protected by plastic films or strawberries placed individually in small foam packs have been blooming on the social networks ... accompanied by the hashtag #RidiculousPackaging and #BreakFreeFromPlastic with the names of the companies ... advertisements they would do well!

  The NGO behind this campaign is putting pressure on companies to reduce packaging. Greenpeace points out that plastic pollution continues to contaminate the oceans and that 90% of the plastic produced is not recycled. More than a million people have already signed the association's petition to ask several companies including Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Nestle and McDonald's to stop using single-use plastic.

Every year, between 6 and 8 million tonnes of plastics are released into the sea, killing hundreds of thousands of birds and marine mammals. According to a report from the foundation of sailor Ellen MacArthur, if nothing changes, the oceans could contain more plastic than fish by 2050. Today, we estimate there are about 150 million tonnes of plastic waste in the oceans. If the consumption of plastic continues at the same rate, the ocean should contain 1 ton of plastic for 3 tons of fish in 2025 and 2050, more plastic than fish, in terms of weight, "says the study. Unless businesses and politicians take the problem seriously... the citizens are ready to take action to change things.

This large "natural discharge" concentrates 80,000 tons of plastic on an area equivalent to three times that of France.

It does not have much to do with a continent as it was read in many media a few years ago, but still. In the middle of the Pacific, between Hawaii and California, a large area concentrates huge amounts of plastic waste. A new study was published in Scientific Reports can measure the extent.

On a territory as big as three times France, nearly 2 trillion plastic waste floats freely, according to researchers at The Ocean Cleanup, a non-profit organization founded by a young Dutchman, Boyan Slat, who dreams to clean the oceans. This represents nearly 80,000 tons of plastic, which is 4 to 16 times more than previous estimates.

"We must not imagine a sea of ​​plastic," warns Laurent Lebreton, oceanographer and first author of this publication. "The concentrations vary between 1 and 100 kg per square kilometer. This is not noticed at first glance. But when you take a closer look, it's still a lot of waste for such an isolated place, in the middle of nowhere. "The waste is concentrated here by the currents that come around this area. calmer.

The researchers conducted the first expedition with fifteen boats in 2015 to sample the waste in several hundred locations. The nets used were nevertheless too small to give a good idea of ​​the distribution of the largest waste (above 50 cm). They returned with a LIDAR-equipped aircraft, an infrared camera and high-resolution cameras in 2016. And that changed everything.

"Micro-plastics (size less than half a centimeter, Ed) are the majority in number - 94% of waste - but they represent only 8% of the total mass," says Laurent Lebreton. Waste of more than 10 cm represents three-quarters of this mass of floating plastic. "It's a big surprise. Rather a nice surprise in a way because the biggest waste will be the easiest to remove. "

Another surprise, almost half comes from fishing boats. It is most often buoys or nets, often deadly for many species, starting with sea turtles. "We do not want to point the finger at fishermen, this situation is a collective responsibility," warns Laurent Lebreton. "It's our way of life and consumption, the society at all disposable as a whole that needs to be questioned."

This year, The Ocean Clean Up will test a first 600m long curved floating dam. Objective: "rake" this large patch to concentrate the waste of more than one centimeter and allow their collection by boat. In the long term, it would take 60 "barriers" of one to two km long to collect 90% of this waste by 2040, the organization predicts. Their unit cost is estimated at € 5 million (including the three-year transaction costs). The price to pay for cleaning the oceans as long as it is time: little by little, plastics break up to form micro-plastics which will be much more difficult to get rid of.

Britain's environment minister Mickael Gove announced last month that he wants to ban plastic straws. The French association "Bas Les Pailles" has published a forum for France to emulate this example.

Refreshing news for the environmentalists. The petition of the association Bas Les Pailles recently reached the 99.000 signatories on the platform Change.org. This collective launched by the anthropologist Mounia El Kotni wants to simply ban plastic straws in France, quite simply.

  Indeed, if the plastic straws that garnish our juices and cocktails look harmless, they have an impact on the environment far from harmless. Small, light, they are among the most collected waste on the beaches when they are not found directly in the ocean. "Plastic straw is the disposable product par excellence, it is used for a few minutes and then we forget it. A true champion of the disposable society, "says Flore Berlingen from Zero Waste.

"In France, every day 8.8 million straws are used and discarded and this only in fast food. Plastic straws are among the 10 most collected garbage on the French coast. "Can be read on the site of the collective. "Their small sizes make them difficult to recycle," says Flore Berlingen. "Often by the effect of runoff they end up in nature or in the ocean".

Once at sea, fish and birds confuse straws with food, all the more easily as the straw breaks up into small pieces over time. "And all this obviously comes back to us: ingested by animals, this plastic is found most of the time ... in our plates." Can be read on the page of the petition.

An ecological fight "in the air of time"

"Prohibiting plastic straw is really a simple way to reduce plastic waste," says Berlinger. This is certainly the reason why many collectives militate for their prohibition. Some have bet on a striking name that attracts attention like the London Straw Wars Association or Straws Suck, the campaign run by the Surfrider Foundation. Others are the result of the outrage of very young activists, such as the one less straw campaign launched in 2009 by Olivia and Carter Ries when they were respectively 8 and 7 years old at the time.

  A growing mobilization that reaped political victories. In Canada, the city of Tofino in British Columbia has eradicated plastic straws since 2016. In the United States, Seattle became the first city to ban plastic straws in the summer of 2018. Mickaël Gove, Minister English environment, announced last month that it wanted to ban plastic straws. Scotland, Costa Rica, Belize, Kenya, and Taiwan also provide for a total or partial ban on plastic straws.

In France, commitments have already been made to reduce the number of plastic waste. Indeed, the previous government has already promised to ban the sale of disposable plastic tableware, plastic swabs, and micro-marbles in beauty products by 2020. A promise that the Minister of the Ecological and Solidarity Transition, Nicolas Hulot, is committed to holding.

"This decision of 2015, was indeed a great step forward for the fight against polluting plastic waste, confirms Flore Berlingen, now we would like to extend this list of disposable plastic products banned, already with the straws but also, with the coffee taps that exactly the same problems. "On this point, the representative of Zero Waste is optimistic:" It is in tune with the times in Europe, the Commission should also announce measures in this direction in a few days ".

The Lotus flower finds itself growing up in harsh and muck water. Still it has a good smell, and you cannot find any mud on stems or flowers.  It provide hope and inspiration for anyone, who lives in a poor and difficult situation, as he or she can still raise up, become successful and contribute for society instead being limited by their social heritage.  

If you look at what scientists say about this healthy plant, then it is clear that it brings many benefits for humans. Lotus are able to reduce cholesterol, it help to control sugar level in blood, and reduce fat level in blood. Furthermore, it can reduce blood pressure, release tension, prevent heart disease, anti-infection, strengthen immune system and it is good for skin, too. Naturally it raise skepticism about how much effect you can get out of it, but at least it is a flower, and it is green, so it is healthy to eat. In Vietnam, they use lotus for many purposes. They consume the root, and actually makes use of all part of the plant. They use the lotus root for a vegetarian soup, and they slow cook it with meat to make a stew or they pickle it with vinegar and sugar.

The purple part from the root is the stem. Lotus stems’ are used in many dishes like pork lotus salad, the always-popular hotpot, and pickle. It contains fibers to add to the healthiness. The taste is quite neutral. It can certainly be joint with other ingredients.

The leaves are large and used as an eco-friendly wrap for foods. Before the plastic bags or paper was invented, the leaves were used in Vietnam. Now we wish to get rid of plastic in the environment, it is time to come back to the much more environment-friendly of using Lotus leaves for wrapping. It has the advantage of a good smell that foods can absorb. In Vietnam, they use lotus leaves for wrapping sticky rice – it is very popular and at the same time very cheap breakfast for students and workers who need a healthy breakfast to stay fresh and durable.  

Hue in Vietnam is a kind of vegetarian capital of the country and they use lotus seeds,flower and leaves a lot in their food.

The lotus is very popular in Vietnam. It is produced by adding tea inside the lotus flowers for some nights, just to have enough time to the aroma. You can see tea producers leave very early in the morning and boat in a lotus pond where they put tea inside the flowers.  After a few nights they can harvest the lotus tea. Lotus tea is a strong part of the Vietnamese tea culture, and is associated with many legends and is spoken about in deep respect. It is said that under a porch is the best place to enjoy the traditional lotus tea. To makes it even better experience, then the best suited place would be to sit out to a lotus pond, so you can smell lotus aroma in the wind while sipping the tea.

Inside the lotus seed, there is a green part. It has a bitter taste to it, but it is believed to have a string effect for those who cannot sleep or has had tension for long time. 

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