Go Green(heart): A Drop in the Ocean

By: Delphine Dall’Agata, Greenheart Exchange Marketing and Outreach Intern

Are you unsure of how to participate in protecting the Earth? This blog series offers simple changes you can adopt daily to live a greener life. Together we can put the “green” in Greenheart!

This week’s theme is all about water! Water is a precious natural resource that covers over 70% of the Earth’s surface. With growing populations, increased pollution, and climate change, our drinking water must be protected to ensure safe and potable water access, to limit harm to aquatic wildlife, and to reduce the risk of water shortages. Here are some tips you can adopt in your daily life to make a difference:

1. Bottle It Up: Every square inch of the ocean contains over 46,000 pieces of floating plastic. Check out this graphic to better understand the impact of plastic water bottles. To save our waterways, invest in a reusable water bottle and join the movement to ban single-use plastic water bottles!
2. Turn Off the Tap: Each year, Americans waste a trillion gallons of water (that’s about 40 million swimming pools!) due to leaky faucets and excessive running water. Having trouble picturing it? This infographic helps to illustrate the waste. Limit water waste by fixing your leaks, turning off the tap while brushing your teeth, and shortening your showers!
3. Fend and Filter: Harmful chemicals, oil spillage, plastics, and pesticides have increasingly entered our watersheds, polluting and depleting them. Remember that each river, stream, or pond flows into a larger lake or ocean, meaning that hurting one resource hurts them all! Even the smallest amount of pollution impacts populations across the globe. Limit dumping any unnatural detergents, medicines, or unsafe liquids to protect these aquatic resources. To avoid drinking contaminated water, you can easily use a water filter to fill up your reusable water bottle with clean, fresh water!

Life without water is unimaginable, so we must all do our part to save this resource. The EPA offers some additional suggestions for individual and community involvement in protecting water. Every drop counts!

Are you committed to guaranteeing a sustainable future? Check out how Greenheart Exchange’s Work and Travel program promotes environmentalism through cultural exchange!