Hygiene Changes

Hey,

When it comes to sustainable habits, hygiene and beauty products are often avoided. So, today we’re going to help you turn your hygiene routine into a greener one. Ready?

When you are brushing your teeth:

Our mothers taught us to close the tap when we are brushing our teeth so that the water stops running. But did you know you can make other changes too? Well, let’s start with that toothbrush of yours.

Certainly, you change it a few times a year. That multiplied by lots of people puts the number of plastic toothbrushes that get discarded every year in the billions! Also, most of these end up floating in the ocean where they can damage ecosystems or filling up giant landfills. For example, in the United States of America alone between 850 million and over a billion toothbrushes are discarded and end up in landfill each year.

You can do your part by replacing yours for a bamboo biodegradable one! They’re really cute so what do you really have to lose anyway? Besides that, there is also a greener option for the toothpaste, one that instead of being inside a plastic package is inside a glass container! Oh, and let’s not forget about the dental floss!

When you’re taking a bath:

Taking a bath, our favourite time of the day! But have you noticed that every product you use during this time is inside a plastic bottle? Studies show that liquid soap has a carbon footprint 25% larger than soap in bar. Moreover, liquid soap needs 5 times more energy to be produced and can use 20 times more packaging!

There’s no excuse to not be friends with the environment in this situation too! We can choose products in a bar rather than those in a plastic package. There are several options: shampoos, deodorants and even shaving products! Although it’s usually not sold in physical stores, there’re a lot of online stores dedicated to it.

Of course, these are many changes and you don’t have to do them all at once, but it would be nice if you’d give it a try!

Think about it,

Green Impact Team

References:

[1] Char Brush (2016, March 3). The Number Of Toothbrushes Discarded Each Year. Retrieved from: http://charbrush.com/general/environment-plastic-toothbrush/

[2] Mcloughlin, R. (2018, November 22). Beauty and the beast: plastic-free bathroom. Retrieved from https: //friendsoftheearth.uk/plastics/plastic-periods-menstrual-products-and-plastic-pollution on May 1, 2020.

Egg Code

Hey buddy,

Do you know what to look for when you are buying eggs? There are different packages, with different colour and classifications. It’s not a Da Vinci Code, don’t worry, we will explain it to you!

Have you noticed that every time you buy eggs, they have something printed on their shell? Well, those seem random letters and numbers, but they actually send a real important message to the buyer!

This is how the “Egg code” works in European Union: the first number represents the method of production; the two letters after, the country of origin (every country has its own code); and the rest of the letters are referred to the hen laying establishment.

Before putting this into practise, we should go over the method of production code. If the first number marked on the egg is a “zero” (0) then it means it was an organic egg production. If it is a “one” (1) then it is a free-range egg. A “two” (2) means it was a litter indoor housing production and a “three” (3) a cage farming one.

Do you feel that your questions were all answered? Let’s see if you learned something.

In this case we can see it was an organic production, you were correct! Well done!

With all this said and after being friends with you for this long, I don’t think I need to say to you that next time you buy eggs you should look for the number zero or one!

Have a nice shopping trip,

Green Impact Team

References:

[1] British Egg Industry Council. Egg codes and quality. Retrieved from: https://www.egginfo.co.uk/egg-facts-and-figures/industry-information/egg-codes-and-quality on April 17, 2020.

Sustainable parties!

Hello again, 

Let’s talk about a thing that most people love. Parties!!! Gathering people you like, spending time with them and having fun is something that we are used to do. But did you ever stop to think about the process of organizing a party and the amount of waste that it produces? On today’s post we will show you some tips to organize a successful but sustainable party. 

To start we will take a look at food. If you are thinking about throwing a party, why don’t try to make finger food, this is food that doesn’t require plates or cutlery like fruit, popcorn, cheeses and canapes, among others. 

Moving on to the tableware. Instead of buying all those plastic cups and plates, try to use the ones you already have. Choose to utilize glass materials that you can wash and reutilize and, in case you are throwing a kid’s party, you can opt for paper-based supplies. Try to use some of those super trendy reusable straws too. All these are measures to reduce the amount of trash produced in gatherings. 

About the decorations, now this is important because when you decide to throw a party you feel like it has to be perfect and beautiful, ending up buying those plastic decors and balloons that finish up in the garbage when the party is over. No need for that, because that are reusable decors at stores too! You just have to look better and get away from the plastic. Choose fabric and paper-based materials, we assure you that it will look amazing! 

These kind of plastics used in parties and other situations have a negative impact in our environment, but some measures are being taken at the moment so that we can avoid polluting even more our planet. The European Union is a great example of this! The Parliament has decided that these type of single-use plastics will be banned by 2021^[1]. Things like plastic cutlery and plates, plastic straws, and even plastic balloon sticks will all be barred from EU. 

Thank you for reading and let’s do some ecofriendly parties! 

Green Impact Team

Reference:

[1] News European Parliament (2019, March 27). Parliament seals ban on throwaway plastics by 2021. Retrieved from: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20190321IPR32111/parliament-seals-ban-on-throwaway-plastics-by-2021 on April 10, 2020 

Food Waste

Hey there,

Around the holidays, a lot of food is wasted. Easter is just around the corner so what better time to discuss this but now? Did you know that in the European Union, approximately 20% of the total food produced each year is lost or wasted? “But what does it have to do with the environment?” you may ask. Well, wasted food accounts for 19% of the waste dumped in landfills, which contributes to the production of greenhouse gases like methane.

As a person there is a lot you can do (like making a list before shopping so you know exactly what you need, for example) but in this article we will focus on a bigger scale. Let’s see what companies are doing to be more sustainable!

Supermarket

Every day, a considerable amount of food is wasted in the supermarkets. For example: bakery, food that is about to expire, etc. Well, we proudly say that some supermarkets are actually taking measures to fight waste! Mark&Spencer, for example, lowers up to three times the price of the goods that expire in a certain period of time. People feel more tempted to buy because it’s cheaper and waste is avoided! In addition, the company also donates to charity. In fact since the Food Redistribution Programme started in 2015/16, Mark&Spencer has redistributed over 8.5 million meals preventing 3,500  tonnes of food from going to waste!

Mobile phone apps

Also, apps are being designed to promote sustainable eating. Restaurants, bakeries or other kinds of food places register the amount of food they still have available, and people that have signed up in the app have access to those numbers and can make a more informed choice. Sometimes, the facilities lower the prices too so that people feel more excited. We will leave some links bellow 😉

Restaurants

Buffet Restaurants are also taking measures! Usually in a buffet restaurant, you can eat all you can (if that isn’t the definition of paradise, I don’t know) but some people exaggerate and end up taking to the table more than they can eat. And the food goes off. Some restaurants, against this behaviour, are applying taxes to those who act like this: if you waste food, then you pay extra for the amount of food wasted!

Keep your eyes open and you might get a free cupcake!

Green Impact Team

References:

[1] European Union Website (2019, November 11). EU Platform on food losses and food waste. Retrieved from: https://audiovisual.ec.europa.eu/en/video/I-180488 on April 10, 2020.

[2] Troitino, C. (2017, September 14). The Tragedy Of The Buffet Commons: Reducing Food Waste At Hotels. Retrieved from Forbes’ Website: https://www.forbes.com/sites/christinatroitino/2017/09/14/the-tragedy-of-the-buffet-commons-reducing-food-waste-at-hotels/#2eba90d117dc

[3] Mark&Spencer Website. Food Waste: Our business – tackling food waste in our own operations. Retreived from: https://corporate.marksandspencer.com/sustainability/food-and-household/food-waste#d1707f49af9b47d3b3beeb5891089d31

How to fight plastic bags

Hello again, 

Most of us know that plastic is one of the biggest polluters of the world. In the USA, for example, every year, 100 billions of plastic bags are used, which gives the estimative of more than 300 bags per individual^[1].  

Fortunately, there were people that started creating ways to reduce the amount of plastic used in the world. This is where reusable bags came in. Continue reading this to learn more about these reusable bags and why you should use them. 

Using sustainable bags brings a lot of advantages, mainly being fashionable (just kidding, guys!), but apart from that, the reduce of plastic used in stores and supermarkets. 

Usually when you go to a supermarket you probably don´t even count the number of plastic bags and containers that you are using. It goes from using a different plastic bag to store each type of vegetable and fruit, to when you check out and place all your groceries in several other plastic bags, all of these being single-use plastic bags. Each year 40% of the plastic produced is single-use, this means that these are the plastics that you use one time and throw it away a few minutes or hours later, but they will keep being in the environment for at least hundreds of years^[2]. 

With reusable bags you will dramatically reduce the use of this toxic material and you will be helping the planet to become more sustainable. More and more, people are creating these bags and personalizing them with designs that are very fun and creative. 

See you,

Green Impact Team

P.S. We hope you decrease the use of “plastic” as much as we should reduce the number of times we wrote it on this article!

References:

[1] The World Counts. The Bad Boy of Pollution. Retrieved from: https://www.theworldcounts.com/stories/Plastic-Bag-Pollution-Facts on April 1, 2020 

[2] Parker, L.(2019, June 7). The world’s plastic pollution crisis explained. Retrieved from: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/habitats/plastic-pollution/ on April 1, 2020 

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