Vegan Love for the Planet: Reduce | Honouring the earth, Honouring us.

Vegan Love for the Planet: Reduce (Contest)
I would like to thank Plant Power for encouraging and promoting this kind of initiatives and gatherings in which we as a community can express and share valuable feelings and knowledge.

As Wednesday 2 August 2023 was celebrated as Earth Overcapacity Day, in this post I share some of the actions it carried out, seeking to balance between what we take from the Earth and what we give back to it.

It is not in vain that in the last few months we have seen how forest fires all over the world have been increasing rapidly, due to the El Niño phenomenon in conjunction with anthropogenic warming; sudden changes in temperature, sudden rains in warm places and the absence of rain in places with high rainfall.

These types of actions do count, we are not alone, there are many more people who from silence or anonymity also carry out these types of actions. Applying consumption reduction habits to reduce our harmful footprint is a quite, I would say too rational option...

As reduction habits I will focus on sharing three of them, and tell in depth what they are, what motivated me to undertake this journey, how long I have been practising them and what advantages can be observed when applying them.

Habits:
1 Cycling

2 Choose bus or walking

3 Composting

Cycling is an option that has always been on my mind from an early age; besides being economical, it is healthy. It wasn't until last year that I decided to take action, as fear is the one who too often we allow to decide for us. I refer to fear because, as is known to many, when we move in this way, we are not exempt from any accident or theft, and I even think that in part the level of risk increases.

What motivated me to take the decision is the autonomy it brings, not depending on whether or not I have money or a third party to move around the city, while at the same time reducing my carbon footprint; I have noticed the advantages over the months and it is something that I love, physically I am getting stronger and stronger, also sport helps us to be stronger in life, with many of the lessons we find by doing it we can use the analogy in relation to everyday life, for example, when we see a goal as something that is beyond us in many ways, when we think we are not good enough, cycling comes to remind us that concentrating on the present moment will help us. By asking ourselves can I go one more step (or can I cycle one more time?), the answer will be YES. Not giving up and forcing ourselves to do activities that, even if we don't want to, we know we have to do, are some of its teachings.

Using public transport or choosing to walk is another one of those actions that I have been employing by choice, for a year now as well. Like the previous habit it has allowed me to realise how strong my body is, teaching me to be more grateful to it. I found the motivation to start by realising that while it takes time to move in this way, it also brings health, strength, and mental toughness.

Finally, the habit of composting came to me late, it wasn't until I was 18 that I first heard the term, and two years later, I started paying a company for the collection service. This service is paid monthly, they offer a weekly collection of organic waste and a quarterly return of 1 kg of humus.

Whether or not to separate organic waste, wrap it in a plastic bag and throw it away is something that breaks my heart, we know the damage and pollution we are doing by doing it this way, it was asking the right questions that led me to make this decision without hesitation.

And I conclude by saying that these are just some of the many ways I express my love for the planet.