Plastic:

I’m very guilty of purchasing cases of bottled water. It’s crazy to imagine that the person who created bottled water was actually told he would never make a profit. “You can profit off of something that’s free.” If the world only knew. The convenience of the water bottle is what makes it so irresistible. You can also get so much water with what seems like so cheap but the real cost is so much more than you realize. Here are just some simple facts:

1. Every single second, 1,000 people open a bottle of water in the U.S.
2. Each day, people in the U.S. throw away more than 60 million plastic water bottles, most of which end up in landfills or as litter in America’s streets, parks and waterways.
3. Americans throw away 35 billion empty water bottles a year. Of those, only 12 percent are recycled.
4. Out of everything we put in our recycle bins at home, approximately 50 percent of it is never recycled.
5. Every person in America drinks an average of more than 30 gallons of bottled water a year. That means it takes 90 gallons of water just for one person to drink bottled water. In a world where 783 million people don’t have access to clean drinking water, that’s half of what one person would need for the entire year.
6. Although the U.S. comprises less than 5 percent of the world’s population, we consume more than 25 percent of natural resources and produce 30 percent of the trash and pollutants. Plastic constitutes 90 percent of all of the trash floating on the ocean’s surface – approximately 46,000 pieces of plastic per square mile.

If you read those facts and still decide it would be too much to get rid of your convince be sure to recycle. The caps of bottles are a different plastic than that of the bottle’s itself. Caps are what some people call #5 plastic while the bottles are called #2 plastic. I think it has to do with density and just the way the plastic is formed.

You can donate caps locally or there are various places that accept plastic caps like: Caps of Love / Chariots of Love which if you collect 1000 bottle caps it will donate a wheelchair to a child in need. 

Here’s a few ways to reduce your plastic waste:

• Purchase reusable water bottles.
• Invest in a water filter such as Brita so you are able to filter tap water and drink from home.
• Purchase reusable straws
• Invest in bamboo toothbrushes

Buying clothes:

Who knew saving the world could be as easy as buying clothes? There are plenty of companies who are investing in the ideology that millennial’s “buy for a cause”. A person is more likely to purchase of invest in a product if it has some kind of charity or helping a cause behind it. “10% of our proceeds goes to _____”. I don’t know about you but I’m all about purchasing cute stuff to help save certain parts of the world.

You may have heard me talk about a couple that I am an ambassador for:

• Koexist Creations: 10% of proceeds go to the Koala Hospital in Australia & St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital.
• Sandcloud: 10% of proceeds go to help save marine life. 

I guess call me a millennial because those aren’t the only two company’s that sucked me into purchasing something to help save the world. I of course do my research before “buying into” these companies. Unfortunately there are a lot of scams out there.