New Forest Aquaponics CIC

Earth Day. 22nd April 2024

I do love the idea we have a day to celebrate the earth, and it brings joy to my heart to see how many people are engaging with it. 

The theme this year is earth vs plastic,  and when you look around at just how much more plastic there is it is a good theme to have chosen.  We need to get the conversation around plastic going again. Little things have changed. It is now easy to buy paper stick cotton buds in high street shops, and takeaways mainly come in non plastic containers, but we still have more plastic circulating round us and our world than ever before.

My journey with trying to do something about plastic in my world started on Christmas day 2017.  I was aware of and wanted to do something about plastic many years before then, but life didn't allow It. 

Finding ecobricks has given me direction on how to deal with that plastic.  But far more than that, following the ethics and principles behind ecobricks in my daily life has given me a way to live more in harmony with the cycles of the earth and to live  in reprociety with our shared home. 

What does this look like in daily life? From the outside looking in it may not look much different to everyone else, but the fundamental change is how I think. 

Changing how we think can take time and be quite hard, especially when no one  else around you is thinking the same way. 

Some call it systems thinking where you are conscious of every process that goes into an item you think you need, both before and after it comes to you.  This can be quite exhausting, especially when faced with the amount of temptation thrown in our faces each day.

And for quite a while this was what I was doing for everything, but then I realized I need to take the next step to give my brain and heart a break. 

The next stage was to call myself a non consumer, my goal being to not be responsible for using the earth's resources up. 

But then I knew I needed to do more. 

I truly believe from the last 7 years of my deep Dive into plastic transition that one of  most important solutions is to be Responsible for positive inputs into the planet's resources. 

So not just refusing that plastic carrier bag, but helping to make it easier for more people to have access to an upcycled cloth bag, or composting everything that is organic that comes  from my household, and then sharing with others easy ways to do the same.  

Giving value to and presence to the things we already have, to know when we have  enough. 

To value each other and all life, to understand how life works and survives when everyone's contribution is valued. 

When we do this, taking care of the plastic is easy. 

Ecobrick principles

Go deep and read more 

TRACTATUS AYYEW - An Earthern Ethics