Whether you’re on a journey to a new eco-friendly lifestyle or just looking for some interesting sustainability facts for research purposes – education is the key to a greener world. Let’s look at some amazing and very surprising sustainability facts that you probably didn’t know!
Seaweed may be our future food and material resource
Seaweed farming is becoming an increasingly popular biomass product to use for food. With our current technology, areas in the ocean could be used to produce food without freshwater or fertilisers. Additionally, seaweed farms have the potential to minimize our carbon footprints and increase biodiversity. Seaweed farming can also give us clean ocean water, and provide a sustainable natural material that can be used for food as well as other important resources such as medicines, packaging, and material for clothing and accessories.
The truth about biodegradable plastics
Biodegradable plastic isn’t actually always as good as you may think. Bioplastics are generally considered to be more sustainable than ordinary plastics. But if you take the material’s life cycle into consideration, it’s a little more complicated.
Bioplastics do produce less greenhouse gas emissions and usually degrade quicker than other plastics. However, there are a few problems. Firstly, biodegradable plastics can only be taken to a few special recycling centres, which means the transport distance may be longer. Secondly, when bioplastics aren’t discarded properly (which does happen!), they can harm the whole recycling process. They sometimes even end up in landfill and degrade at the same level as old plastics. When you next need to buy plastic, be sure to buy the easily degradable version. But the best option would be, hands down, to just skip the plastic altogether if possible!
Why you should consider purchasing a laptop
A laptop is a significantly more eco-friendly choice than a desktop computer. Laptops use around 50% less energy, which means desktop computers produce much more carbon. Here’s another point, desktops are also heavier and bigger so they use more resources to build them.
Top tip! I’m not suggesting that laptops are great for the environment either, no computers are. But it’s convenient for most businesses in the modern world. Just remember to unplug/switch off the charger when not using your laptop. Even small things like this do add up!
Wave power could be the best option to produce energy
Wave power is something people don’t really talk about. Can waves in the sea help us solve the global energy crisis? This is a very interesting topic. We are well aware that solar and wind power are both great ways to move forward for a sustainable planet. However, wave power could be a more reliable resource. Waves are formed when the wind blows over the surface of the water, and to capture the energy we need devices that are called Wave Energy Converters. The devices can capture the energy from waves and then turn it into electricity.
Many countries in the world are actually developing wave power already – including Australia, China, Denmark, Italy, Korea, Portugal, the UK, and the US.
Recycling one aluminium can save enough energy to run a TV for three hours
You can find recycling bins pretty much everywhere: we see them on the streets, in the office, and at home – it shouldn’t be that hard to recycle things then, right? The way to get more people to recycle is to educate them on its benefits. For example, how much energy can be saved by recycling. So here goes…recycling that empty can of fizzy drink could save enough energy to get you through at least two GOT episodes! Knowing this, hopefully now you’ll be prompted to recycle!
I hope you found these surprising sustainability facts as interesting as I do! If you want to learn more about sustainability do check out Be More Starfish (Situ’s ESG policy) for some more tips on how you or your business can be more eco-friendly.