How To Keep Our Environment Clean?

The UN Rights Council has declared that getting access to a safe, healthy, clean, and sustainable environment is our human right on 8th October 2021. It is based on an estimation that about 2,50,000 deaths can happen between 2030 to 2050 for the direct or indirect impact of environmental issues.

And That makes us think twice about keeping our environment clean and safe for everyone. In the tropical regions, 1.2 billion people depend on the forests and oceans for their living. And worldwide, we depend on the same forests for pure oxygen. So, it is highly crucial to take preventive measures on an individual and organizational basis to prevent the harmful impact of climate change.

Today, we will be explaining the importance of a clean environment and some tips to keep the environment clean. So, let’s begin!

Why Should We Keep Our Environment Clean?

Before diving deeper into different ways to keep our environment clean, let’s understand the importance.

When we talk about the environment, it means both indoor and outdoor environments. We human beings generally keep our indoor environment clean. But, we think it is not our responsibility to the outside environment.

On an individual level, we start throwing different types of contaminants, primarily plastics, into the outer atmosphere, which eventually become killers to ourselves.

Plastic Pollutants Are Everywhere

According to a statistic, about 79% of plastics we use regularly are discarded in oceans or landfills. And every year, the number of plastics dumped into the oceans reaches 4.8 to 12.7 million tons.

We can imagine the littered shorelines with this vast concentration of plastics. And it’s not only because of the industrial revolution but because of our regular use.

Increased Global Warming Effects

On the other hand, land pollution is one of the primary reasons for the most significant environmental issues, such as global warming. Deforestation is one of the significant causes of land pollution as plants protect the soil from sun radiation. Other factors affecting the land include fertilizer use in agriculture, mining, and landfills.

These stats and information show the importance of why we need to keep our environment clean from all kinds of pollutants. Further, some of the harmful impacts of global warming include sea-level rise, Antarctic ice melting, human-created natural disasters, and, ultimately, biodiversity loss. This is highly impacting our economy.

It Affects Our Health Adversely

Furthermore, the impact of such contaminants directly or indirectly, suddenly or in the long run, affects our health.

Air pollution is a cause of several cardiovascular and respiratory diseases. Especially pregnant women, older people, children, and people with previous respiratory diseases are highly vulnerable to air contaminants.

Further, another report from the World Health Organization shows about 4.2 million deaths every year due to the air pollutants in our outdoor environment. And if we talk about water pollution, oil spill disasters and plastic wastes are the major causes that are hampering the lives of marine biodiversity and the 3 billion people who are dependent on oceans.

These are the importance of keeping our environment clean. And as responsible human beings, it’s our responsibility to start acting towards it today.

5 Ways to Keep Our Environment Clean

Now that we understand importance of keeping our environment clean, let’s grasp some points on how we can contribute to a clean, safe, and healthy environment.

Start Conserving Electricity

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, there was a decline in energy use by 3.5%, which will increase to 4.1% in 2021. That makes us think again about conserving our electricity through various means. Turning off the lights, fans, and other electrical appliances when not used is the best way to bring awareness about increased electricity.

With the increased population, our energy demand is also increasing. And our significant electricity demands are fulfilled through non-renewable resources like fossil fuels. So, besides reducing electricity usage, we can further switch to renewable electricity sources.

Reduced electricity use or alternative electricity sources will help us prevent air pollution. The number of carbon emissions that occur during the energy production and the GHG emissions through electronic appliances will be reduced, making our environment clean and healthy for living.

Reduce And Stop Single-Use Plastics

According to a report published by earthday.org, we produce nearly 380 million metric tons of plastics every year. And that’s a huge amount to consider. Besides, we already have discussed the problems these single-use plastics cause to our environment. And as soon as we can, we should stop using these plastics.

Further, as per a report, 77 countries have already banned the use of plastics worldwide, either partially or fully. And that is an excellent decision to keep our outdoor environment clean.

When there is no demand, production will be diminished, too. And as a result, our ocean bodies and landfill will no longer be found dumped with plastic contaminants. We can either use newspaper wraps or cloth bags to substitute these plastics.

Save Fuels by Driving Less

The next point to keep our environment clean is saving fuel. We are using fuel more than ever. Petroleum products used in our everyday lives, mostly our vehicles, need to be reduced.

According to a report, the U.S. alone consumes 18.12 million barrels of petroleum per day on average. This makes us think about the overall usage of such fossil fuels worldwide.

And how can it help us to keep the environment clean? Oil spillage is a huge environmental problem that happens during oil transport from one place to another. Mostly in oceans, these are the primary cause of marine habitat loss and accumulation of pollutants.

If we start to drive less and use the public commute system or choose to walk or bicycle instead, our oil dependency will be reduced.

Eat Local and Plant-Based Foods

Again, eating local and plant-based food will reduce our transportation costs per capita. And that will help us to keep our environment clean further.

As we save the long transportation for eating a particular type of food, it contributes to reducing the greenhouse gas emission and further reduces our carbon footprints.

Further eating local and organic foods can help your farmers and producers economically. Also, according to research, a lot of our nutrients degrade between the harvest to transport, storage and selling. Especially in foods rich in Vitamin C, like fruits and vegetables, the nutrient loss is more prominently seen.

On the other hand, eating plant-based foods can also help us save the environment from harmful contaminants through less transportation.

Use Less Paper

There are about 401 million metric tons of paper and cardboard production globally. And it increases our concern for increased deforestation and the other related consequences.

And when we reduce relying on paper usage on a day-to-day basis, there will be a smaller number of trees chopped down. Less deforestation means less biodiversity loss and also less amount of land pollution. Further, it will reduce our risk of global temperature rise.

But how can we keep our environment clean by reducing paper usage? Well, we can switch to digital mode from pen and paper mode. Also, we can replace paper bags, napkins, and other wrappers with cloth wrappers.

Conclusion

According to the World Health Organization report, about 13.7 million deaths are directly or indirectly due to environmental issues. And it thrills us about the fact that we’re still at the risk of uncertain death due to pollution or chemical exposure.

So, keeping our environment clean should be our top priority, not just to save ourselves and our loved ones but also to save other living creatures, including our plants and animals.

Besides these five ways to keep our environment clean, we can further take some other steps such as;

• Using the proper methods of waste management.
• Starting to recycle papers, plastics, and other non-degradable things.
• Planting more trees on different occasions.
• Further, we should stop discarding hygiene products in the sewage system.
• We can create our own garden and start composting through the food garbage.
• We can also help the environment by using smart appliances that reduce energy consumption.

There are more we can add to this list. However, taking the responsibility to keep our environment clean and safe is the primary step we must take immediately.