Hello beautiful people and welcome, welcome back to my channel, my name is Kiura and if this is one of the first videos of my nature watching please hit the subscribe button down below as well as hit the bell notification so you won't miss out on any of my future videos. I post videos on a variety of topics every single Wednesday and Saturday. If you do not know I am a second year student at the University of Adpartisland and I'm busy studying ecology and environmental thinking kind of thing from that line so I thought for today's video it would be a good idea to give you some tips on how you can reduce your effect on this earth and become more ecologically aware so let's get on to that. For the first thing is something that's actually been a very big trend right now and that is to thrift or have handy downs. Growing up in the big Indian family that I did and being one of the youngest grandchildren until my little sister and my little cousin came along I had a lot of clothes passed down to me from my cousins and my aunts and this also has one with affordability if you are thrifting. I even got like this really cute waist jacket which looks like something quite fancy but I got it from a pretty sure 300 grand list and other people would have if they had got it for first hand if that is a real question and I think it also helped with my style since personally I really like vintage or retro clothing so if you are in that style I think that this stuff really could work for you as well. The second tip is something that I'm pretty sure most of us have heard and that is to do things to reduce your plastic use and so easy ways of doing this is to not buy anything with a plastic bottle instead actually what I have is I got this really cute bottle, metal bottle from pick and pay really affordable and it keeps your water cool for much longer than it would if it was in a plastic bottle. Another thing is to not use any plastic straws. I did this in my what do I eat in the day or one of my exam videos but that is to have a metal straw with you at all times. I have one always in my handbag or in my university post. One of my biggest pet peeves is wasting water. I see so many people you know brush their teeth leaving the tap on for the whole five minutes that they are brushing their mouth or when they're washing their hair leave the water running the entire time. A simple, simple way to reduce this is to put like the tap off in between you know rubbing the shampoo into your head and then rinsing it out and turning the tap on and switching it off like that or when you are brushing your teeth rinse your toothbrush put your toothpaste on it put it in the water to make it all soft and easy for you to swirl around your mouth and put the thing off when you are actually brushing your teeth. Do you know how much of water gets wasted by people who leave it on? I don't understand why you leave it on because you're going to miss the sink anyway after you spit out your toothpaste but yes please please if any if you take anything out of this video that is to please reduce your water usage. Going again to being an Indian person I'm pretty sure most South Asian people are definitely accustomed to the tap away love of us. My mom has so many ice cream containers or you know those little source containers you get like if you get take out and stuff like that that she just keeps and she puts things in and this is such a good way to make sure that you are not using single use plastics and rather you are turning it into something that's actually useful such as when we are giving food to someone or we are storing something we just use the ice cream container or other tap away like containers and we stored in the instead of you know throwing away ice cream container and then still having to go and buy single use tap away plastic from like ordments or something like that. As you guys know if you have watched my journey to vegetarianism I am a vegetarian eater I'm just a bit my diet is vegetarian let's just say that and besides that I also do not eat eggs like most vegetarians do and I try to reduce my dairy to as little as possible and I'm not saying you have to convert to vegan to veganism or vegetarianism I think a really good way to start is to for instance one day out of your week not eat any meat products and that can do a lot for the earth I don't think it's very difficult to ask to try and practice that and obviously if you find that quite busy for you to adjust to then you can go on for longer but starting off with just one day I'll try and cut out meat and meat products I think can do a lot for one the earth and also for your own physical gut health. The other thing if you are a parent that is watching one of my videos is to not encourage your children or yourself to supporting things like sews and circuses they have been so many articles that have come out about how bad animals are treated in zoos and circuses I think circuses is the tool but you know what I mean the treatment of them is very bad they keep them caged and don't feed them regularly and they're very very much neglected so not supporting them as a whole is a really good idea and this will obviously follow out with more people as people get educated on this issue and eventually circuses and zoos will go out of business hopefully and will you know cease to exist in the future and so past treatment of animals that used to be in that kind of industry will also reduce if you are looking at ways to you know entertain your child or for you to entertain yourself in terms of going to see animals and stuff I think a really good way is to go to sanctuaries or things like Kruger National Park where you know it is free range for the animals you know it's very much more a natural approach to seeing the animals rather than keeping them caged or feeding them yourself or things like this is to look for vegan friendly skin products or any other things like clothing brands and also to make sure that they are locally produced this will reduce your carbon footprint in terms of the transport costs of trying to you know get things from overseas etc but a lot of people find this very difficult because they don't really know how to actually source out what is vegan friendly and basically at the back of each product if it is vegan friendly it will have this like bunny kind of emblem I think you got as can see that right or it will have that it is vegan like that and also again going with the whole reduce reuse and being ecologically aware thing it will also have this reduce recycle reduce reuse recycle kind of emblem and I think that's also a really important thing because every every single person in this world uses some type of skincare or product on their body and I think that this is a very effective way to make sure that we are using products that are actually good for the earth and not harming it and for the last tip which I'm going to do because I am running out of SD card is to make your voice heard it might not seem like a lot for you as an individual you know to go to places that are fast food restaurants or you know to places like pick and pay or check this and talk into them about how serious issue is of single use plastic bags or cutlery and asking them you know to look into using things or giving away things such as brown paper bags or you using your own you know shopping bag or instead of single use plus cutlery single use plastic cutlery rather changing to bamboo or wooden spoons and you think it's a little thing for you to do yourself but if you are saying it and there's five or six other people that are doing it with you are knowingly eventually the management is going to take into consideration what you are saying and will make a change if you ask me or my mom or anyone that knows me whenever I see single use plastic I do make my voice heard and educate them on you know how bad it is for the environment as well as if they do change I commend them on them commend them on it and tell them how much it means to me personally for having done that and I've seen this change a lot in the past few months with forwards, pick and pay, food lovers, market, sometimes even checkers and if your place doesn't isn't changing a thing, it's also you rather just by reusable shopping bags and carry that with you when you are going shopping. So those are my big tips for being more ecologically aware and trying to do your small part in the earth which will make a big difference. I really do hope that you guys found this very very very useful. I would not preach something that I try to do to the best of my ability myself so yes these do work and it's not a very big thing to ask you to do I think and even if you just make one change from what I said in your personal life I think it will be very good for you, your family as well as the earth. Thank you guys so so so so much for watching I really do appreciate it. Hope you guys have a lovely week filled with lots of love, happiness, light, positivity and green living. Love you guys, bye!