Colored balloons are so beautiful, especially those inflated with helium! Yes, they are beautiful, but they are dangerous as well and unfortunately most people are unaware of it. The pollution caused by balloons is a growing problem with deadly consequences. Although it can be totally preventable, millions of balloons are intentionally released in the environment every year. What happens to balloons once they are released? Where do they go? Actually, they don’t disappear: sooner or later they return to Earth as litter. Since they are light and made of quite resistant plastic, they can fly for hundreds or even thousands of miles and land anywhere, they pollute the most remote…
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How to save the Oceans
Summer: time for holidays, sea, relax and fun. Also, time to stop, observe and reflect. This year I’ve been lucky enough to spend part of my time in a place not far from the sea, so I could start taking the first walks on the beach between April and May, when the shore is still not constantly cleaned up by the lifeguards. What I found was a plastic beach: trash at every step. When I was a child, I used to collect shells and pebbles on the beach; today’s children will find almost only plastic pieces, cotton buds, cigarette butts… Plastic is choking our oceans, hurting animals and our own…
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DIY: how to create handmade recycled paper
Paper is such a common material in our daily life that we do not pay any attention to it, even though we use it continuously during the day. On average, 300 million tons of paper are used worldwide each year. Throughout history, it has been the instrument that allowed men to preserve the cultural heritage of humanity: the most famous literary works were written on paper, as well as artists’ drawings and scientists’ calculations that led to great discoveries. Until a few decades ago, it was the only medium we used to store our memory. In the past, for centuries, paper was made using mainly rags of linen, hemp and…
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Domestic composting
When I was a child I spent a lot of time in my grandparents’ vegetable garden and I often saw them collecting fruit peels, egg shells and coffee grounds, crumbled and mixed with the soil of the garden. My grandma told me that this waste was perfect to feed our seedlings and get better vegetables. So every time I threw away an organic rest in the trash I thought I was throwing away a precious resource full of potential. What a waste! And that’s right, my grandmother taught me the right thing and now I can finally put into practice her teaching thanks to my composter! Unfortunately, where I currently…
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Zero Waste lifestyle
Have you ever seen those strange people doing stranger things with jars full of their own trash made in months or years? Well… they follow a zero waste lifestyle and they are the strangest people of the world. And I’d like to become one of them! Zero waste is a culture, it is a behavior. Its goal is to pollute less through simple everyday actions that everybody can do to contribute to the protection of the environment by producing less garbage. At first glance this concept can be scary because it seems impossible to reach. However “zero waste” doesn’t mean you make zero trash. No one can. But we can…
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The city that changed the way I see the world
I have already written about my experience as a countryside girl in London in my previous post. Here I will tell you what changed my point of view about “life, the universe and everything”. In two years I couldn’t get used to the urban life, with the consequent pollution, traffic, and never-ending noises. Throughout my life I have lived divided between two little Italian towns in the countryside: How could I ever get used to the big metropolis? London is a beautiful city that offers job opportunities and gives the chance to experience art and culture for free, thanks to its huge museums and spectacular galleries. But other things aren’t…
