Reflection, encouragement, and relationship building are all important aspects of getting a new habit to stick.
Share thoughts, encourage others, and reinforce positive new habits on the Feed.
To get started, share “your why.” Why did you join the challenge and choose the actions you did?
Well final day today, cant believe how quick it has gone! After last year I did continue to do the odd litter pick whilst walking but it was pretty sporadic, I'm going to commit to doing a minimum of one day a week to keep it going through the year and obviously apply other lessons learned as well 😊
At the start of this month long journey, I only took on only a few of the daily and one-off challenges that I was confident I could complete. Like everyone else I took these challenges seriously and checked-in each day to record and highlight what I had achieved from those challenges. What is important now is, what next, what commitment am I going to promise beyond this challenge, so here goes: (1) I will continue to use my re-useable bottle and not use plastic; (2) If I see litter, I'll pick it up and dispose of it properly; (3) I'll always store our re-usable bags in the boot of our cars, so that even if we forget whilst out shopping, we can always quickly pop back to the car and get them; (4) If I can walk / cycle rather than use the car, I will; and (5) Never mind using paper straws instead of plastic, our household will not use straws at all!
When we moved in to our house many years back there was a plumb tree that had been damaged and had sadly died. We removed the rest of the tree but decided to make Harry Potter style wands out the trunk that was left. They are still not finished but the children slowly work on them from time to time to perfect how they want them to look.
If you would be interested in helping native bees, you might consider putting the remains of the stump in an out-of-the-way area. Many native bees will dig chambers into the wood, where they deposit individual eggs/larvae along with pollen for the young to eat.
Native bees are non-aggressive, provide a significant percent of the pollination we need for our flower and vegetable gardens, and are seriously threatened.
We don't generate a lot of waste. I already recycle much more than I throw away. This is the waste that I cannot recycle or compost from a family of 4 for one day: My council do not have a scheme for recycling plastic other than bottle shaped plastic and we have no food waste scheme. If I lived near my parents, our waste would have been one plastic lid from a coffee jar (and I wonder if that could have been recycled too) plus 2 cocktail sticks!
Earth Month has sped by. I have learnt a lot of new things but more importantly I am changing my habits. Using the car less, using my 'bags for life', planning meals, reusing before recycling, collecting litter and generally taking more notice of my surroundings. I will try to ensure that, for me, every month is Earth Month.
Not just bees, but butterflies too play a vital role in our ecosystem by pollinating. I buy caterpillars every year to mark an anniversary close to my heart, I look after the caterpillars as they develop into beautiful butterflies, then I release them into my garden and the local area.
I recently chose a very eco friendly gift for my Dad's birthday. I made a bird feeder and bug house for his garden from a wine box I had received and wood and twigs from my own garden.
I have thoroughly enjoyed Earth month and many of the actions / challenges that I set myself during this month will carry on with me into the future and wont be just for Earth Month. I am looking forward to Plastic Free July and I would encourage everybody to sign up for Plastic free July, a global movement sharing plastic free solutions so we can take action to end plastic waste. Maybe Emerson could set up a similar dashboard to the Earth Month to track & share what people are doing to encourage this movement.
