Earth Day 2022: Co-founder of Essex organisation urges everyone to make an eco-friendly change
The theme of this year's Earth Day is 'Invest in our Planet'
To mark Earth Day today, a local organisation is urging everyone to make one change to become more eco friendly.
Sam Pitman is the co-founder of Eco Essex, a volunteer-run, online community, which offers help, support, workshops and mentoring to businesses and members of public looking to make more environmentally friendly, sustainable choices.
She's given Greatest Hits Radio Essex two of her top tips to become more eco-friendly:
1. "Try and work out what it is that bothers you. What it is you connect with and what's breaking your heart. From that point, focus your energy on trying to help those things - don't try and do it all, it's too hard!
"For example, ending deforestation is important to me, so when I buy paper, I always make sure it's either made out of recycled paper or forest friendly paper."
2. "Don't just focus on all the little things. I think it's very easy to think about recycling or getting a bamboo toothbrush, but actually, the bigger changes make much more impact.
"For example, if you changed your bank away from one on the high street to an ethical bank, that change alone is likely to have a bigger impact than anything else you do this year."
Sam does acknowledge her advice might not work for everyone: "I don't believe there's a wrong or right answer. We all have to do what is right for us and our lifestyles, because what might be realistic for me and my lifestyle might be completely unrealistic and unachievable for somebody else."
She hopes Earth Day will inspire people to do their bit for the Earth's future: "This year the focus is on investing in our planet and taking action. Wouldn't it be great if we could all just take one action.
"Maybe that's looking up ethical banks or deciding you're not going to the use the car today and will pick up the kids from school on your bike instead.
"Earth Day is just a really great starting point to acknowledge you can't do everything, but you can do something."
After taking the first step and making a sustainable change, Sam says it's vital to keep it up: "Doing things for one day is great, but ultimately, it's not going to make any difference in the grand scheme of climate change and the crisis we're in...
"It's about habit changing and focusing on the long term benefit."