The Great Garbage Patch

Plastic is literally everywhere. It is in the ocean and strewn across that corner you take every day to go to work. People often use plastic due to its sheer convenience and how cheap it is to use. But it is not cheap at all as it costs the environment a lot; plastic takes forever to decay and in most cases doesn’t decay at all, thereby polluting the environment to a great degree. Here in this article, we will look at some useful ways of living a plastic-free life.

1. One is better than many

When you go shopping, make sure to buy in bulk. When you buy in bulk, you are essentially making sure that you don’t visit the grocery store often. If you don’t visit the grocery store often then you won’t be needed that many smaller bags each time. Many supermarkets have become eco-friendly and have moved on to cloth bags. The cloth bags are environmentally friendly but they are more expensive, and there are no small cloth bags either. So your frequent shopping trips require the use of smaller plastic bags to help you with carrying what you have gotten. So our advice is to shop in bulk and refrain from asking shop owners for plastic bags.

2. Don’t Drink that water

Bottled water is one of the largest sources of plastic waste as it is found around the world; in almost all countries. Old plastic bottles begin to deteriorate and are thus thrown away. But these bottles don’t break down into useful compounds in the soil; they instead become a nuisance that is either thrown in landfills or in the oceans. The plastic bottles take decades to decay and even when they do, they release harmful chemicals leading to increased damage to the environment. So carry an eco-friendly bottle or use a paper cup instead.

3. Food Containers

Try not to use plastic containers to store your food as it has been found that after bottles, people tend to use plastic containers a lot as well. Plastic containers pose a unique challenge as it is often heated and cooled drastically, meaning that the chemical composition is often affected due to the frequent change in temperature. The change in temperature leads to potentially harmfully chemicals being released due to the bonds becoming weak due to the changes in temperature. Use stainless steel boxes or paper bags to pack lunch. Try to use ceramic bowls instead of plastic containers to microwave your food.

Remember that the change has to start with you.

You would think that carpet cleaning is and easy job; you vacuum maybe shampoo a troublesome stain, and you call it a day! But if you want called a professional carpet cleaner, and get paid well, you should consider listening and working with your seniors in the field. I know it might not be the most glamorous job out there, but it can be a good living and a good way to learn how to keep your own home clean, clear from pathogens, and smelling great, and while at the same time make money on the side or as a source of living.

Requirements

So you would like to be a carpet cleaner and would like to know what you need to be one. You don’t need anything more than an able body and the capability to learn and do a good job. But it would depend on the company you are interested in working at for additional requirements.

While it would be possible to start your own carpet cleaning service, would be best for you to work in a company that knows the industry and has a few tricks to teach you to; not only clean carpets but acquire and retain clients. Though if you’re the type that has been cleaning at home for years and has a few cleaning tricks up your sleeves, you can give it a shot. Unless you plan to store some large batches of chemicals, there shouldn’t be any special requirements above a business permit and the standard stuff, though I would definitely call your local government office to check (city and state).

Not Just Vacuums And Shampoo

If you want to be a professional, don’t expect only to decrease overhead you will be working with industry grade chemicals and equipment, some form of training would be recommended when using them. In this article we choose not to be too technical with terms though; simply put, the industrial grade chemicals and equipment might look like the stuff you use at home but are actually a stronger version of it.

If you have your own carpet cleaning company, you may choose to use commercial grade materials, but using industrial grade will allow you to have faster results for far less cost. I remember buying an industrial grade shampoo to use at home and used it as if I was using the regular stuff on my car; I used way too much and damaged my paint job. This is because of its industrial grade concentration, what I needed to use was only a third of what I needed to use with the commercial stuff.

The same goes with equipment; they are far more overpowered compared to their household counterparts. Designed to do the job faster and stronger, so training and instructions are a must to experience, which is why I definitely do recommend working with a company and colleague experienced in the field.

Carpet cleaning can be a good way to make a living, and at the same time become a very rewarding one, just make sure you work with the best ones in order to be trained how to do the best job. When you know what you are doing you can either stay on the good payroll of a company or start your own professional carpet cleaning service.

Somewhere in the middle of the Pacific, an island has been forming, but don’t start packing your bags for a tropical adventure yet; this island isn’t one you would like to visit. Some call it Garbage Island, but it’s most widely known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch; an island larger than the state of Texas made entirely out of floating garbage. While improper waste management definitely has something to do with the formation of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, it is clear that our current standard procedures for disposing of waste are lacking.

When we clean our homes, and vacuum our carpets, we hardly ever think about where the dust and bits of plastics we clean up go. Sometimes we try to be a little greener and make sure the plastic bottles and cups go to the recycling bin, maybe even ask the carpet cleaners if they use environmentally safe chemicals and methods, but by the time the garbage leaves our property we no longer care what happens to it and where it goes. Most cleaning services do their responsibility for the environment and make sure those that can be recycled goes on to be recycled, unfortunately that might not be enough and the problem lies elsewhere.

The problem lies in how we handle plastics; a study done some time ago stated that only 10% of the plastics used and produced ever makes it to the ocean as waste, a number that would seem to be acceptable to many. The thing is though; the garbage patch is made of 80% plastic, which doesn’t make sense at first until you recall that plastics take about Five hundred years to degrade. That 10% doesn’t seem that much at first, but since we don’t wait five hundred years before disposing of our water bottles, it builds up pretty fast, considering that we just invented plastic the previous century.

What Harm Does Garbage Island Pose To Us?

Have you ever thought where the plastic bottles or cups lying on the carpet floor go after your mom sentence you to clean up for an unauthorized party you had while they were gone? Well, they actually travel farther then you probably ever will, to islands where your parents can only dream of going to for a vacation because of the large bill the carpet cleaners left.

You might think: “Alright so there’s a bunch of plastic bottles floating around the ocean, so what? At most, it is an eye sore that washes up on shores in the Pacific.” And you’re partly right; it is an eyesore that washes up on shores, the thing is though, it isn’t just a few bottles on the sand; one island in Hawaii experience more than six feet of garbage washing into its shores from that garbage patch. And currently, islands in the Philippines and Korea are experiencing foreign garbage slowly washing up on their shores, in time the garbage patch will slowly grow, and more and more islands will experience the same thing.

Another problem is when plastics do degrade. Plastics does not biodegrade, at least current plastics and the majority of plastics found in the Great Pacific Garbage patch; but they do photo degrade. When plastics degrade the don’t return into the properties they are made of, they just turn into smaller and smaller versions of itself, which doesn’t seem so bad until you discover what they do to the environment.

Mermaid Tears

Today in our oceans, if you look closely you will see little specs floating on the water, gently dancing in the current. These are called Mermaid Tears, and while it would be wonderful in a way if I told you that these are the tears of mermaids shed due to the destruction of their home, they are not. Mermaid tears are the degraded form of plastic, and though you might think this is a good thing at first, the terrible truth of mermaid tears makes them unworthy of their name.

Mermaid tears attracts chemicals and oils spilled by ships and chemical plants, couple that with the fact that they also attract Plankton, the stuffed fish eats, makes them a hazard not only to one species but all of the animals in the food chain, which if I am mistaken, is the whole animal kingdom (including humans).

So think about the harm those little pieces of confetti and plastic you vacuum from your carpets could do to the environment. It’s actually quite amazing how something as simple as carpet cleaning could actually affect the environment in the long term.

How To Stop This

It is unfortunate but cleaning up the garbage in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is not possible, and could be harmful to the environment with current conventional means. What we can do for now is to stop the plastic from the source.

Apart from a reform with our waste management and recycling methods, cleaning our homes would need to be changed as well. Standards of cleaning and the reduction of waste and reuse of all reusable material at home would be essential. Only with this and the elimination of the complacency of allowing even a fraction of a percent of plastics entering the ocean, can we slowly eliminate the danger that garbage island poses to the world?

Choosing A Responsible Cleaning Service

While Carpet cleaning would seem like the last thing you would need to worry about when it comes to environmental causes, each and every individual will need to be evaluated in their part of cleaning up the world.

Knowing that your carpet cleaner does all they can to reduce waste and sorting out recyclables and such should be important when choosing which service to patronize. It is your responsibility to a client or employer to know that those working for you are following the same environmental rules and guidelines as you to ensure a better tomorrow. Remember, if you are fortunate enough to be able to afford cleaning services, you are also leaving them to become examples for your children in the future. Teaching your kids to hire responsibly and only allowing adults that could show and teach them proper actions, are a few ways to preserve the environment of tomorrow.