10 Daily Habits That Accidentally Harm The Environment

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Research has found that the majority of Americans not only want to buy more sustainable products but are even willing to pay a bit more for them – they just don’t know where to find them. Additional studies found that 77 percent of people want to learn how to lead a more sustainable lifestyle, and the majority are concerned about issues like pollution and climate change. Ultimately, it’s on us to fix things. Human beings are the ones causing the ozone layer to deteriorate and landfills to overflow. It isn’t some unknown entity – it’s us with our habits. It’s about the ways we consume and the way we get rid of the things we’re done consuming. The environmental issues we face are the result of hundreds of habits, big and small, perpetuated every day by millions of people. Because of that, they’re somehow very simple, but also very complex.

“One person cannot do everything but everyone can do one thing.” I don’t remember where I heard that quote, but it very much applies here. Unfortunately, there are a lot of things we do every single day that we don’t realize harm the environment. If you’re a millennial or older, you likely weren’t raised in a climate of environmental consciousness. You just did things the way everybody else did, and unlearning old, bad habits isn’t easy. But it’s not impossible, either. In honor of Earth Day, let’s review some ways we accidentally harm the environment, so we can put a stop to it.

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Recycling wrong

While your intentions may be good every time you toss something with those little arrows into the recycling bin, you might be compromising everything else in there. Waste Management breaks down the golden rules to recycling here. You may be surprised to find you’re doing it wrong. It also goes over some myths, like the myth that you can put the wrong thing in recycling and it will get sorted out. One inappropriate item in a batch of recycling can contaminate the entire batch, and make it so none of it gets recycled. Even items that are generally recyclable can get rejected if they’re soiled with food or liquids.