Easter is traditionally a time to think of renewal or rebirth and in our group that encourages us to think about the connection to recycling and nature.
The group are finding out a lot about recycling. There are many items that currently go in waste bins that could be recycled if separated from general waste; an example is empty tablet blister packs. Superdrug are recycling these and supporting Marie Curie under “Little Packs, Big Impact” scheme. Clare Welfare in Thorney is the groups representative for dropping these off.
Please let us know if you have an item that you currently put in general rubbish that you think would be better to recycle separately or even know of a charity that would benefit and are happy to collect them.
Meanwhile back to Easter. Other than the religious aspect of Easter we tend to think of Easter in the form of eggs and bunnies…eggs and chicken production will surely be the subject of another blog one day! (And I am definitely not covering any chocolate issues for a while.)
Let’s turn to bunnies, I wonder why there is this connection. In the country wild rabbits are often treated as vermin due to the damage they do to crops, young trees and plants etc. It now seems totally incredible that a disease to curtail the rabbit population (Myxomatosis) and therefore limit the damage to food production was introduced to Europe so effectively.
It’s illegal to spread Myxomatosis now due to lobbying by animal rights groups. However, there are still controversial programs to cull various animals in order to preserve our food chain. Apparently sometimes there is no choice???
For many environmental issues there are choices we can now make. Sometimes, we just need to change our habits to make better choices for the sake of the environment.
Changing habits is a complicated, many tiered process, but ultimately if the result of performing the habit isn’t immediate or certain, humans are unlikely to change. Take smoking for example, the government taxes cigarettes to ensure they are costly, lungs that had cancer are paraded round school (well they were at our school), packets even have a government health warnings on them, and yet many people still smoke. There is no immediate impact and it’s not certain that this habit will kill you and so smokers continue to smoke…until…
Buying a plastic carrier bag because you forgot one of your 100 bags-for-life you have at home is not a huge immediate problem. Photos of whales that have died as a result of plastic in their blow hole is upsetting but not enough to create the immediate need for a change and it’s not certain that all Whales will suffer the same death. There is not a strong enough connection for many to want to change their habits.
I do not confess to know the answers, I just want to try to find them while we do still have a choice.
Meanwhile, here is a clip shared by WWF for Earth Hour – interesting connection to Covid-19 and humans over running the planet…any similarity to the rabbit problem?…
Don’t forget our Nature Hunt over the Easter Weekend. We are hoping to follow a lead from another greening group and ask North Notts Wildlife to visit to give tips on what we can do for our local wildlife. Having details of what we currently see will be a great opener. Thank you.
WH&T Going Green 