The Dawn of a Green Evolution

Throughout the past century our views regarding the environment have changed radically. Western mentalities tended to see the environment as a resource that is meant to be used and exploited for profit and gain. Those who cared for the environment were in the minority and no regulations or expectations truly stopped corporations or governments from destroying and polluting fragile environments. Nowadays though, especially in first world nations, you see a very strong focus on creating sustainable and eco-friendly products.

It could be that millennials were bombarded with green propaganda such as “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” from a very early age. We were taught about the life cycle of products and were made painfully aware of the destruction and pollution that human activities were causing. You add social media platforms and a few disturbing videos and you get instant viral environmentally conscious videos changing paradigms in a matter of a few minutes. Our environmentally conscious upbringing and our ability to instantly share anything has created a very unique set of circumstances that bring us to this exact point, the dawn of a Green Evolution.

Evolution NOT Revolution

Why an evolution and not a revolution? Simple, this isn’t something we need to fight against. There’s no need to go to war with anyone. All we have to do is change ourselves. Change our way of buying and interacting with this consumeristic world. There are now eco-friendly and sustainable replacements for most of our daily use products. From soap to biodiesel, there are greener ways to make everything now. So what are we waiting for? Better question, who are we waiting for?

Are we truly expecting for governments and businesses to change just because? Nah, that’s not how businesses work. What they will most likely do is announce that they will make negligible changes to their production line and then give themselves years to complete those changes. This is a common greenwashing program going on today and it is getting us nowhere fast. It’s actually more dangerous for us to live in the illusion that they are changing because it makes us complacent into thinking things are getting better, when in reality very little is changing and things seem to only be getting worse. Let us stop with the bullshit and let’s start changing things for real. Let's collectively evolve beyond our current limited mindsets and work to create a greener and cleaner society.

Change is Definitely Needed

Whether you believe in climate change or not is a moot point at this point in time. Just a quick look at many beaches and rivers around the world can clearly show you how we’ve made the Earth into a living trash can. That being said, modern society is now at a point where to stop using any of these daily products is more than just an inconvenience, it is almost impossible. A lot of businesses survive only because of these cheap and efficient products and packaging. So what can we as regular people do?

Easy… change the products we buy. That’s it. If you are buying anything made out of plastic, simply find a suitable sustainable and eco-friendly replacement. Not only will this replace plastic and other oil based products and makes it much easier to dispose of. A typical compost facility can dispose of all compostable products in 2 years or less. Even if the trash ends up in the landfill, under the most horrible conditions these plant based products will become something akin to fertilizer within 10 years. Plastic and styrofoam and even cardboard cups with plastic lining will take decades and even centuries to break down. And even when they do break down, they break down into toxic nano particles that cannot be reused. There are new machines that can properly recycle many oil based products efficiently, but do we still want to keep polluting the Earth with oil based products when we don’t really have to ? I vote no.

- Rico