The world is facing a catastrophe when it comes to the disposal of waste. Most of the world’s waste consists of plastic bags, bottles, and other plastic packaging. Plastic bags are consumed at a rate of 500 billion to 1 trillion per year. Every minute, approximately one million plastic bags are used. Many are asking, how can we decrease these massive numbers? Opting for reusable produce bags or eco-friendly bags is a great place to start.

Greta Thunberg was born in 2003. By the time she was nine she was troubled by climate change, not knowing why people were not doing anything about it. In protest, at the age of 11 she stopped speaking, today she sees that ‘selective mutism’ as the first step to understanding the power and necessity of speaking at all. This determined 16-year-old is a vegan and has given up flying. Finding her ability to persuade, as she did with her parents, Greta decided to broaden her audience to bring awareness and do something about the climate change.

Meghan Markle has been closely observed by many since her engagement to Prince Harry. She has been using this opportunity to shine a spotlight on many sustainable brands. Celebrities using their platform to promote conscious and sustainable fashion is not new.

Thinking about going zero waste or perhaps wondering how can sustainably shop or eat? These 5 women will help you cut down your waste!

Fashion is a $2.5 trillion global industry. In 2017, the US alone spent $380 billion on apparel and footwear. Waste of this industry? 92 million tones, that is 4% of the world’s waste per year. An average American throws away over 68 pounds of textiles per year directly into landfills. With the rise of fast fashion, we are negatively impacting the environment. Fast Fashion brands like H&M, Zara, Missguided, Forever 21 and more are bringing new ‘‘trendy’ wear to their stores (and online) every week. This, of course, is affecting the way people shop, the waste they create and how they discard this waste.

Climate change is real, it is happening right now, it is the most urgent threat facing our entire species, and we need to work collectively together and stop procrastinating. We need to support leaders around the world who do not speak for the big polluters or the big corporations, but who speak for all of humanity, for the indigenous peoples of the world, for the billions and billions of underprivileged people who will be most affected by this, for our children’s children, and for those people out there whose voices have been drowned out by the politics of greed.”

Your friends, family or even you yourself may have gone through your closet, picked a piece of clothing and asked, ‘Does it spark joy?” after Netflix released “Tidying Up with Marie Kondo”. If your clothes sparks joy that’s great, keep it, use it and mend it! If It doesn’t then you may think about throwing it away which we do not want you to do since Americans, “… throw away 13 million tons of textiles — about 85 percent of their clothes — each year, accounting for 9 percent of total non-recycled waste”.

41 million Americans are food insecure and 12-13 million children in America face hunger. To make the matter worse, in the United States, 40 percent of all food is wasted, costing us $218 billion.. We need to educate ourselves on how we purchase, consume and discard food. In 2014 FAO reported that the global water footprint of food wastage is equivalent to three times the size of Lake Geneva. The World Economic Forum states that Earth’s 1 billion hungry people could be fed on less than a quarter of the food wasted in the US and Europe.

Since plastic is made to last, it doesn’t really go away. Traditional plastic bags can take 1,000 years or longer to decompose, and even then, they will never be completely broken down. As for recycling the plastic, only 8-9% of plastic has been recycled in the United Sates. Plastic will break into microplastics which have been known to be found in table salt, and water meaning we as humans consume microplastics frequently, without a second thought. We eat plastic equivalent to one credit card a week!

18 billion pounds of plastic waste flows into the ocean every year. 40% of all plastic is used for packaging, used one time and then discarded. The packaging industry alone produces 161 million tons of plastic per year, building and construction produces 72 million tons and the textile industry produces 65 million tons. Consumers in Denmark use approximately four plastic bags per year, but in the United States consumers use an average of one plastic bag per day. Less than a fifth of plastic is recycled. In the United States, approximately 9% of our plastic trash is recycled. We are facing a plastic epidemic.

You may be wishcycling if you have been throwing questionable item(s) into your recycling bin hoping that the item will be recycled. With easy access to single stream recycling we may not think twice about what should actually go into our recycling bin and what should not. Single Stream recycling was introduced in early 2000s in the US. This made it convenient for individuals and businesses to dump their recyclables into one bin since the recyclables would be later separated at the sorting facilities. Since this was much more convenient for customers, recycling rates increased but so did the contamination rate. Contamination rate is at 25% today, 1 out of 4 items placed in the recycling bin do not get recycled.

As sustainability becomes more prevalent in the beauty, home and fashion industries, brands are taking notice and making big changes. Online shopping is booming, but packaging waste is a big problem. Approximately 165 billion packages are shipped every year in the United States alone, majority containing single use plastic. These ten companies are making a change and using reusable or recyclable packaging to eliminate waste.

Dads can be hard to shop for. Whether your father is the one who already has everything, or tells you that he doesn’t need a gift, we’ve got you covered. Read on to see our favorite sustainable gifts for Father’s Day this year!

Fair Trade USA was established in 1998 by Paul Rice. He flew to Nicaragua in 1983 and recruited coffee farmers to sell their product on Fair Trade terms. The farmers loved the benefits they received, as their higher income allowed them to better their communities, and soon over 3000 families had joined Paul’s group. As soon as Paul returned to the US, he formally established his values into TransFair USA (now Fair Trade USA) in Oakland, California.

Since its foundation in 1909 L’Oreal has become the number one cosmetic company in the world. Many brands you see on the cosmetic shelves today are owned by L’Oreal. They own at least 39 beauty related brands, including Garnier, NYX Professional MakeUp, Kiehl’s, Urban Decay, Essie, Redken and Biolage. The group made their first commitment to sustainability in 2001 by joining the World Business Council for Sustainable Development. In 2002, they joined the UN’s Global Compact.

These six celebrity women are forerunners in the fight for ethical products and sustainable living. Both influential and compelling, celebrities have the power to make great sustainable and healthy change in the lives of others, whether that be through education, raising awareness or promoting safe, healthy products for all parties involved.

Aprons were invented to keep clothing clean, especially during messy cooking and baking times in the kitchen. Aprons for women can be traced back as far as the 1300s. By the 1500s, aprons were starting to gather more traction, and fancy and personalized embroidered ones for upper class women were introduced. Aprons reigned until the 1980s when the trend started to wear out. Now, aprons may not be as common on a day to day basis, but they are still found in most homes, given as gifts and worn on special family and guest occasions.

According to the Center for Biological Diversity, airplanes will generate 43 gigatonnes of pollution contributing to global warming by 2050. Currently, airplane travel accounts for approximately 11% of CO2 emissions from public transport in the United States. Airplane emissions, including vapor trails, are harmful to the environment, but not as long-lasting as car emissions. Booking a non-stop flight will also help to reduce your travel impact, as takeoff and landing create the most emissions.

Make the switch from wasteful plastic and invest in organic cotton tote bags. Americans consume more than 300 million pounds of plastic every year. Plastic takes over 1000 years to break down, and even then, it doesn’t ever break down completely, it only separates into small pieces, known as microplastics. The chemicals used in the making of plastic can be absorbed into your food, items you carry in your bags, your body, the bodies of animals and into eco-systems. Encourage your customers to be sustainable and make the switch from plastic to eco-friendly, biodegradable cotton bags.

When a product is Fair Trade Certified, that means it has passed all of the qualifications to become Fair Trade, including improving working conditions, protecting land and paying a living wage. In the United States, Fair Trade certification can be most commonly achieved through Fair Trade USA or Fairtrade America.