1000 Flowers for the Planet - #578 Sweat the Small Stuff

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #578 Sweat the Small Stuff

There won’t be any point at all in fixing the ‘big’ stuff if you don’t sweat the small stuff, because the small stuff can actually be bigger than what you consider is the ‘big stuff’.  Using a bamboo toothbrush instead of a plastic one is not actually ‘small stuff’ – it’s multiplied by the numerous brushes you use each year, then multiplied by the millions of people who use toothbrushes, making the final number enormous. And that’s only one item of plastic going into the environment. Take your toothbrush number and then multiply it by all the other plastic ‘stuff’ you throw away every day – meat packaging, bread ties, coffee pods, take away coffee cups, water bottles, milk bottles, biscuit wrappers, chocolate wrappers, Q tips, disposable nappies etc etc. Now add the ones you don’t throw away every day but which are manufactured and eventually ‘tossed’ in the millions: pens, CDs and jewel cases, shampoo bottles, disposable razors etc etc. Have you ever head of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch? It’s not a small issue. And it starts with one little toothbrush.

Change has to start with each of us as individuals. If we think the problems are too big to deal with, nothing will be achieved. We have to start somewhere, and that’s with each person taking lots of really small ‘good’ actions. Those actions are then multiplied by each of us who takes them, and the numbers become enormous – in a positive way. Sweat the small stuff!!