13 Oct What is the Impact of Wasting the Earth’s Natural Resources?

Thinking about how we, as humans, are currently wasting our planet’s natural resources is not something pleasant and it can make us feel uncomfortable, especially if we feel that we are not doing enough to preserve our environment. As uncomfortable as this may seem, this topic is a very serious one and we all need to contemplate on ways in which we can save our natural environment. Today, more than ever before, we are extracting too many minerals from underground mines throughout the world. This results in degradation of fertile soil (which could otherwise be used for farming and planting trees and plants) and pollution due to the machinery involved. Because we are using vast quantities of water each day and because our climate is changing, arid or dry areas are experiencing extreme water shortages. This loss in biodiversity because of climate change is having a devastating impact on our fresh water ecosystems.

We are also very much a waste generation and tend to discard items too quickly, instead of recycling, reusing or repairing them. This has caused our landfills to overflow and, although we recycle, the pollution generated from the recycling process is just adding to our environmental woes. Our natural resources are dwindling but if we choose to purchase eco-friendly products instead of non-recyclable ones, this can make a huge difference. For example, replacing your regular, plastic toothbrush with a biodegradable toothbrush made of bamboo is much kinder on our environment. This is because an environmentally-friendly toothbrush (such as a bamboo toothbrush) will be biodegraded much quicker and easier. A bamboo toothbrush cleans just as well as a regular one, so why not make the change? With the earth’s population growing at an alarming rate and more natural resources being used, it is more important than ever to make a decision to preserve our precious planet.