Today is bank holiday Monday but it's also Earth Day 2019.

A couple of days ago I watched the latest David Attenborough documentary - Climate Change. If you haven't already seen it then you can watch it on BBC IPlayer.

I thought it was really well presented (as expected), gave a good concise summary of the science behind climate change and, even though you will feel panicked when watching it, it very clearly states that there is still hope if we act now and gives suggestions that can be easily implemented (on a personal level) in order to make a difference. 

Here's 10 things that I have been doing over the last few months or will be doing in the near future to be kind to my planet:

1. Less dairy. We no longer have cows milk in the house but instead all use Oatly Oat Milk. This works well for tea/coffee/cereal and even yorkshire puddings :-)

2. Less beef & lamb. We tend to eat chicken once during the week and eat a lot of The Happy Pear vegan dishes. They are full of flavour and very easy to make.

3. Buy responsibly. When we do eat meat, we buy it from our local butcher in Brighton who sources local free-range chickens and  grass fed beef. Not only does this reduce our carbon footprint but it also supports local small businesses.

4. Cutting down single use plastic. We buy as much of our fruit & veg locally as we can so we can buy it loose and not in plastic wrapping.

5. Refuse plastic bags. We've been doing this for a while and it has become a habit. I'm love with our new denim shopper bags and always have my smiley face Baggu bag folded up inside.

6. Energy efficient homes. We re-mortgaged a while ago and took some equity out to replace our very old, rotten, drafty sash windows with new wooden sash windows. This really helps to keep our flat warm without cranking the heating up.

7. Use car less. Brighton & Hove is pretty small and has a great bus system so luckily it's quite easy for us to get around without a car. 

8. Recycling. We collect all our Nespresso coffee pods and send them back to Nespresso for recycling. We also collect all plastic lids and will send them to LUSH to be recycled. (Doesn't matter that they are not from LUSH, they accept them all).

9. Who gives a crap toilet roll. I want to place an order for this plastic free, recycled toilet paper soon. It's on my list.

10. Plastic free dry goods shopping. We are in the middle of house chaos but once we are more settled in the next few weeks, I'm going to make a proper start shopping at one of the new plastic free shops in Brighton & Hove (for pasta, rice, grains, oats, spices).

I am far from perfect and have a long way to go but feel more at ease knowing that I am doing what I can. Next up solar panels and an electric car (both outwith our budget as yet but on our wish list). 

I'm going to leave you with this lovely story about Afroz Shah, a lawyer & environmentalist in Mumbai, who started the world's largest beach clean-up. Turtles are now back at Versova Beach (Mumbai) for the first time in 20 years, proving that we can make a difference if we start now!

Click here to read more about Versova Beach.