Just what you need

I always thought Australia was quite advanced in terms of clean energy, wildlife protection, recycling – and anything related to nature preservation and kindness to animals. This was before I settled down here and realised kangaroos are hunted for meat, koalas suffers from having their habitat destroyed, decisions like culling sharks are made at the drop of a hat, sheeps are exported alive in terrible conditions, greyhound racing isn’t regulated (or better banned) and the government in place decided that destroying the Great Barrier Reef in an attempt to build a coal terminal was legitimate. Saying that Australia’s has a knack for bashing its icons is an understatement. Luckily, Australians are not ready to give up that easily on their beliefs, and many are fighting wildly, resulting in sharks not being culled anymore or the Great Barrier Reef Coal Terminal project being (temporarily) cancelled.

So the fact that Australia has one of the world’s largest ecological footprints per capita is not surprising after all. If the rest of the world lived like we do in Australia, we’d need the regenerative capacity of 3.6 Earths to sustain our demands on nature. Pretty frustrating when you know the climate change denial the government lives in. Fortunately, we don’t have to follow the country’s leaders in their reckless economic decisions – we, as individuals, have the power to make a difference every single day in making informed consumer choices. These are little wins that matter.

And it all starts by how we clean our toilet, do our laundry, where we buy clothes and furniture, brush our teeth, and even how we (I mean women) handle our periods.

”Eco-friendly” products are better than harsh chemicals – but still mostly come with packaging that ends up in landfills. WWF Australia created a website called “just” to show that there are often simple and natural alternatives to many of the products we use every day. So kudos to WWF for sharing their tips, they’re just what we need!

And they come with hilarious short videos: