You Are Harming The Environment Every Day Without Realising It. Here's How To Stop.

Background:

I wrote this story for CLEO Singapore, an online media platform dedicated to creating content for women in their 20s. This story was written to be a part of CLEO's "Sustainability" section, where they were sharing how to lead a sustainable life.

To cater to this section, I pitched an idea of a story where we explain to readers how their everyday actions make an impact on the environment and what they can do to change that.

I fully wrote the in-depth story, interviewed WWF Singapore for more insight, and I did the research. To this date, it's a story that I'm especially proud of writing, as it allowed me to learn more about how to write for the magazine industry and it also gave me the opportunity for an interview.

What is your usual day-to-day routine? It's probably like this: washing up, getting ready and selecting a work outfit. Pressed for time? Fret not, there’s always ride-hailing apps like Grab or Gojek. 

After a long day at work, you might go for a shopping run at the mall and maybe grab a few new beauty products or a clothing item or two. Then it’s time for dinner. You dapao your favourite chicken rice, and get a straw for your bubble tea. Once you're home, you take a shower, do your skincare routine, eat dinner, change into comfy clothes and then finally hit the sack.

While these may seem like mundane, day-to-day activities, they actually have an underlying impact to the environment. Here’s how. 

Problem: You leave the tap running while washing up

Bleary-eyed and barely awake. That’s how most people are at the start of their mornings. However, the little actions you do in the morning while washing up can lead to huge amounts of water wasted.

Those two minutes you left the tap running while brushing your teeth? That's 12 litres of water down the drain. That time you left the shower on while soaping and/or shampooing? That could easily amount to 45 litres of water wasted. 

Wasting this precious resource means three things.

1. It depletes an essential resource for survival. 

2. It could ruin ecosystems. Humans are not the only ones who need freshwater for survival—agriculture also requires freshwater. If we continue waste freshwater, we might need to end up diverting freshwater from aquatic environments for agriculture. This can upset the ecosystem and possibly lead to endangerment of certain plants and animals.

3. Wasting regeneration resources. Basically, more people = more water needed, and since we’re running out of freshwater, we need to have filters, aquifers or groundwater supplies. These equipment take up a lot of energy, time and money to filter and clean water. 

What you can do: 

In between brushing teeth or when you’re shampooing, turn off the tap.  Save money on your utility costs and save the earth! 

Problem: You prefer to drive a car alone over taking public transport

Creating a car takes a lot of resources. Apart from the resources needed to make the car parts and assemble the car, shipping the car to its respective sellers also leaves a lot of carbon footprint and releases a lot of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. 

On top of that, more cars on the road leads to an increase emission of greenhouse gases, adding to the overall air pollution and global warming. Compare that to a lot of people sharing one vehicle, i.e., public transportation... that's a lot of resources, carbon footprint and greenhouse emission we're cutting down on.

In fact, research has shown that a public bus with three to eight passengers produces half the emissions compared to a car with one driver. If you really need to take the car, consider car-pooling options or having a few passengers in the car.

What you can do:

Choose to take public transportation. By doing this, you’ll be cutting down on your own carbon footprint and there’ll be lesser carbon emissions!

Problem: You shop too much and unnecessarily

Shopping for things you like is always fun. You get to buy new products and try new outfits. But when does shopping become excessive and simply too much? As a start, take a look at your own wardrobe or beauty supplies. There’s bound to be things you don’t use often or things you have never even used at all. 

Over time, you’ll gradually get newer items and things that you might’ve never even used may end up being wasted and thrown out. And in the end, you would’ve made a negative impact on the environment and wasted your money. 

But it's not just money you're wasting. You're also wasting resources used to produce those products, and plastics used in the packaging.

Once thrown out, these plastic packagings usually end up in the ocean, which affect the ecosystem and harm animals and reefs. So, how do you avoid wasting and harming wildlife?

What you can do:

1. Shop consciously. Try and remember what you have and what you need. Create a list of priorities and make sure to never buy repeats, as those may end up being thrown out. 

2. Only shop at fast-fashion brands for pieces that will last you for a long time. Simple accessories and basics are some of the things you should aim for if you do plan on shopping at fast fashion stores. Don't buy trendy items that you'll only use once.

3. Purchase from eco-friendly and sustainable brands, which you can find out more about here.

4. Be aware! Find out more about your clothing carbon footprint here.

Problem: You use too much plastic when dapao-ing dinner

A study by Deliveroo in 2019 showed that 69 percent of consumers in Singapore order food from delivery apps at least once a month. With that staggering amount of takeaway food, we can safely say that the amount of plastic used is a staggering amount.

But food is not the only thing that we consume a lot of plastic for—plastics are also used in beauty products, appliances, plastic bags and more. Janissa Ng from WWF Singapore said that the amount of plastic used in Singapore adds up to about one person using 13 plastic bags each day. She added Singapore discards 700 million kilograms of plastic waste each year, with only 7 percent of it being recycled.

This is why, we all need to do our part to reduce the amount of plastics used.

What you can do:

1. If you’re able to, opt to use your own reusable containers when taking away food.

2. Avoid using single-use plastic cutlery.

3. Avoid using plastic straws, and bring your own metal/bamboo straw instead.

4. Bring your own bag when buying food or shopping.

5. Recycle beauty products when you can.

Do Your Skincare And Body Products Contain Microbeads?

Taking care of your skin and ensuring that the right products go on your face at the end of the day is important to many. But did you know that there’s an ingredient that may be in your products that can harm the ocean? 

We're talking about microbeads, which are found in soaps, toothpastes, body washes, and face scrubs. These tiny plastic particles don’t dissolve, but instead enter water streams by the billions. 

In New York alone, 19 tonnes of microbeads are washed down the drain each year. This leads to fish and other wildlife mistaking the tiny beads for food, which can then cause harm and even death to the wildlife. 

What you can do:

1. Remember to check your body products or skincare ingredients before purchasing them. Ensure that there are no microbeads.

2. If you’d still like to have coarse exfoliants, opt for natural and biodegradable ingredients like sugar, salt or oats.

Originally posted on CLEO Singapore