Earth Overshoot Day.
Earth Overshoot day for this year was July 29th, 2021. For those who are not aware, earth overshoot day is the date where humanity’s demand for ecological resources or service for about a year exceeds what the earth can regenerate that year. Over the last 20 years, Overshoot day has moved forward three whole months. That is a quarter of a year, and this years day is the earliest ever to be calculated. For a long time in our science curriculum, we’ve heard about renewable resources and non renewable resources. Obviously, hearing about the fact that some resources will eventually deplete completely was very scary BUT that day always seemed so far away. However, at this point, in around 6 months, we used up our resources for a whole year, and we are now taking away form our future resources as we speak. I understand that this is incredibly scary to take in. But we can still save our beautiful planet. We just have to take action. As members of girls give back, we NEED to be eco-friendly and we need to start doing/coming up with ideas that help the planet and sharing them across our organization. The Tampa chapter has come up with a couple ideas that not only serve as project ideas, but also can be added to one’s daily life.
----------------------------------------- IDEAS ------------------------------------------------
1) Hosting a period drive where we donate period products like period underwear and menstrual cups as pads and tampons aren’t biodegradable.
2) Informational Instagram post in collaboration w a environmental activism initiative.
3) Promote ecosia, which is a search engine that helps plant trees globally in your household/community.
4) Be more sustainable like using soap bars instead of liquid soap.
5) Instead of using cotton towels or pads, cut up an old t shirt and use it as make up remover.
6) During school, encourage recycling; competition that whichever first period class recycles the most wins like a free breakfast or pizza party.
7) Minute long segment on the school news each morning and taking turns going on and showing the school a more sustainable option to everyday products we use, or suggest some brands that use recycled products/biodegradable products.
8) For more community wise, you could mak
e a community compost for everyone to use (or you can encourage more household compost bins).
9) Start a garden in your school, house or community.
10) If your school has district-wide computers and uses a main web browser like Chrome or Safari, you could talk to administrators and ask if they could consider changing to an eco-friendly web browser like Ecosia (does not have spell-check), or one of your own research.
11) If you live near parks or beaches, you could go with your friends and have a day where you clean up trash/litter.
I fully understand that not all these ideas are the most ideal or perfect depending on your community, or school. However, please keep in mind, these are just ideas that you can base your projects or activities off of. We can still save our planet. Keep fighting.
written by:
-Tanvi Handoo (pres. of tampa chapter)