Not all chemicals are harmful. Water and oxygen are chemicals. Sodium chloride is just table salt, and scary-sounding ethanoic acid is just vinegar. Meanwhile, not everything that’s natural is good for us – cyanide, and snake venom, for example.
But some chemicals can harm the environment or ourselves, either causing immediate damage or building up over time. Those are the chemicals we’re talking about here.
So here’s our Big Green Ideas List for avoiding damage from harmful chemicals.
Influence
Lobby your MP to ban bee-killing pesticides
Bees and other insects are essential to pollinate many of the food crops we rely on – but bee populations are in decline due to the use of pesticides, habitat loss and disease.
- Write to your political representative to encourage them to take a stand against agrochemical and agricultural biotechnology giants like Bayer and Monsanto
- Follow Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth and support their campaigns against the use of neonicotinoids and similar pesticides
Read more about bee-killing pesticides.
See our Influence page for more ways to influence companies, politicians and people you know.
Use environmentally-friendly products
Look for sustainable versions of products
Whatever you’re buying, research whether a more sustainable version exists. Things to consider include:
- How far it is shipped
- How much water, chemicals, energy or dye is used in its production
- Whether the materials can be separated and recycled at the end of the product’s life
- Does the product gives off Volatile Organic Compounds, and for how long
- Whether the material is compostable or easily recyclable
For a detailed analysis of green building design and sustainable construction products, check out GreenSpec. It’s a fantastic resource for building designers, self-builders and anybody who wants to know more about the environmental impact of their purchases before they buy.
Clean with natural, non-harmful products
Good reasons to use natural cleaning products instead of man-made cleaning chemicals include:
- Keeping hazardous chemicals out of waterways and landfill
- Avoiding contact with hazardous chemicals in the home
- Avoiding plastic waste
- Saving money
Natural, non-harmful products like bicarbonate of soda, white vinegar, and lemon juice are effective, cheap and widely used.
Read more about using natural cleaning products.
Decorate less frequently – and choose your paint carefully
Paint is made up of a cocktail of chemicals – each chemical has a purpose, but can cause varying amounts of environmental damage or health issues.
Read more about the chemicals in paint
Do it by hand
Unblock your shower or sink drain by hand
If you have long-haired people in your household, you’ll probably find that the shower drain blocks regularly. Instead of using harsh chemicals (which harm aquatic life), unblock your shower drain by hand using your fingers, a plunger or a drain snake.
You can make a drain snake out of the plastic straps that keep boxes of paper closed, or building materials together on pallets. Cut the strap to length and snip the edges at intervals to make it jagged, then insert it into the plug hole. Move it around until it catches something, and pull it out. It’s gross but effective.
Weed by hand
Chemicals from weedkillers build up in the soil, reduce biodiversity, and can run off into rivers. Alternatives include using woodchip mulches to suppress weeds in flowerbeds, weeding by hand, regular hoeing, and laying cardboard or old carpet over vegetable beds in the weeks leading up to planting. This reduces weed growth, making hand-weeding easier. Weeds are usually easiest to pull up just after it’s rained.
Hand-weeding can be relaxing and meditative, and it can also be quite enjoyable when done with friends and a cold drink on a summer day (depending on your friends of course).
Choose natural solutions
Choose organic food & clothing
Organic crops are farmed with only minimal use of naturally-derived pesticides and no artificial fertilisers[1].
Organic farming relies on natural predators to maintain ecological balance, and nitrogen-fixing plants and crop rotation to maintain healthy soil. This encourages native wildlife, increases biodiversity, stores large amounts of carbon and protects the soil from erosion. It also prevents harmful chemicals from building up in the soil, rivers and our bodies.
If you want to know more, the Soil Association has everything you need to know.
Use companion planting to keep pests away without chemicals
Companion planting means planting certain plants together to deter pests, enrich the soil, and provide shelter. For example:
- grow French marigolds with tomatoes to repel greenflies and blackflies
- plant leeks and carrots together as they repel each other’s pests
Find more examples from Gardeners World here.
Citation:
[1] Soilassociation.org. 2021. What Is Organic? | Updated for 2021 | Soil Association. [online]. Available at: <https://www.soilassociation.org/whatisorganic/> [Accessed 17 June 2021].
Image credits:
River next to arable crop – photo by Akin Cakiner on Unsplash
Bee on a yellow flower – photo by Tsing Wang on Unsplash
Couple decorating – photo by Roselyn Tirado on Unsplash
Hand weeding – photo by Jonathan Kemper on Unsplash
Poppy – photo by Aleksandra Boguslawska on Unsplash