Are you struggling to decide between cloth diapers and biodegradable diapers? Let's explore the key factors that can help you make an informed choice.
Cloth diapers are often praised for their sustainability as they can be reused multiple times. However, recent studies have raised concerns about their environmental impact due to the water and energy consumed during washing and drying. To address these concerns, you can follow the manufacturer's care instructions, such as washing at 30°C (86°F) and line-drying.
Additionally, cloth diapers can be passed down to other children, reducing waste and saving money.
Biodegradable diapers, on the other hand, are designed to break down easily in landfills within approximately seven years, leaving no long-lasting traces. Nonetheless, critics argue that these diapers can still emit methane gas during the decomposition process.
Ultimately, your choice depends on your priorities. If saving money and minimizing waste are important to you, cloth diapers may be the preferred option. Alternatively, if convenience and reducing environmental impact are your main concerns, biodegradable diapers could be a suitable choice.
Both options contribute to a greener future.
Keep answering questions and helping reforest the planet!
Scientists and policymakers at the IPCC, which assess science related to climate change on behalf of the United Nations, have agreed that global warming beyond 2°C poses an escalating risk to human life as we know it on Earth.
In other words – our carbon footprints need to go down significantly.
In the EU, where the average carbon footprint is about 7,5 tonnes per person the reduction needed is substantial.
A carbon footprint is a measurement of the total amount of greenhouse gases generated by an activity. Just as you can measure the carbon footprint of a factory, you can also measure the carbon footprint caused by an individual.
To calculate your personal carbon footprint you need to know two things. How big your emissions are, and how much you offset.
Most activities increase your carbon footprint in one way or another, such as flying or eating meat.
This is why it is important to learn how your activities affect your carbon footprint and start practicing activities that reduce it, such as planting trees.
To understand if you make progress, you need to understand where you start from. Just as a captain of a ship out on the ocean – if you want to reach a specific destination, first you need to know where you start from.
In your journey, your current carbon footprint is that starting point. This is why it is so important.
In the Tribaldata app, it is easy to calculate your carbon footprint. You do this by answering simple questions about you, your habits and circumstances in your life. Continuing on the journey, you can answer further questionnaires to get sustainability tips tailored to you. Tips that can help you understand what causes your emissions, and how to reduce them.
Furthermore as a bonus, you will also get points to plant trees as you progress.
Now that you know your starting point, the next step is to set your destination. What also helps are some realistic goals on your way there.
With your carbon footprint calculated, it will be a lot easier to measure and compare to see that you are going in the right direction, and how much. This will help you stay motivated and to make the changes that are within your reach. You can compare yourself to earlier levels and even compare with friends and exchange tips.
If you haven’t done so already, why not calculate your carbon footprint right now and plant your first tree! It might be the best spent 3 minutes in a long time!
We all have a carbon footprint, there is no escaping it. Our carbon footprint is a measurement of how much we contribute to the greenhouse effect and ultimately the ongoing global warming.
The best way to reduce your carbon footprint is to avoid making emissions. However – eventually once you have changed all the habits you can to get closer to zero. What do you do next?
There are a number of ways to reduce the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. When we decided what to offer to the Tribaldata community we opted for offering the simplest and most proven method there is – planting trees.
To plant trees, we chose to work with Eden Reforestation. Their expertise, scale and track record in running hundreds of successful reforestation projects around the world is quite impressive.
In close partnership with the local communities, Eden are today running hundreds of reforestation projects around the world. There, in extremely remote settings, they work through a range of challenges, from extreme weather and landslides, to poachers, bandits, and wild animals.
They work alongside the communities to produce, plant, and protect trees, and in the process creating jobs to support them in restoring their local environment and economy long-term.
Because of its many endemic species and severe habitat loss rates, Madagascar is one of the world’s top priorities when it comes to biodiversity. The destruction of the mangroves along the coast has caused a lot of issues. Mudflats wash into the ocean, destroying once-productive fisheries and the vulnerability of coastal communities to hurricanes, tsunamis, and floods increases.
Eden reforestation projects began restoring the mangroves in Mahajanga in 2007. There they work with clearing of dead trees, collecting native species, and planting trees during low tide. Less than a decade since the start, the site developed into a thriving mangrove forest, with a healthy aquatic ecosystem. Since this first plantation, various others have been started and Edens activities have grown to also include a variety of upland dry deciduous forests in 2012.
Today, Eden run close to 100 project sites with everything that entails such as extensive infrastructure with guardhouses, fire towers, and seed banks. They also developed a training center for local nursery managers to teach seedling management and effective reforestation techniques.
Edens work is creating livelihoods for thousands of people currently living in extreme poverty by empowering them to restore and protect forests on a massive scale. This helps reverse climate change, global deforestation, habitat loss for endangered species, and extreme poverty. There are many reasons why Eden Reforestation Projects is a great partner to work with. The positive effects of planting trees go well beyond the pure reduction of CO2 in the atmosphere.
Science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke once wrote – “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”. Technology is about harnessing complex chains of events and making them simple and accessible to people.
So the next time you press the button in the app to plant a tree, although on your part it can seem almost effortless, you are making a very real positive difference. You tapping the button give a positive ripple effect that is felt through people’s lives in Madagascar. For meaningful and stable employment. For the local communities, that are brought back to life and thrive again. For the ecosystem. For the planet.
First of all, let’s clarify what we mean when we are speaking about climate change. It is a term often spoken about in the media and you probably heard it in a number of circumstances. However, we seldom speak about what it actually means. We often refer to the climate as the typical weather for a region. Such as how often it rains, how windy it is and typical high and low temperatures.
Climate change speaks about the change in the typical weather for a region with respect to earlier measurements over a long period of time. Scientists have measured typical parameters such as rainfall, air pressure and temperature for hundreds of years, starting back as early as the 18th century.
Thanks to gathering all this data over time, it is easier to put our current situation into context.
Looking at the data, it is clear that temperatures are rising. In fact, the past 20 years have given us several new temperature records across the globe.
The basic physics behind greenhouse gases have been known to scientists for over a century. Carbon dioxide – often referred to as CO2 because of its chemical composition, methane, nitrous oxide among others are often mentioned.
Just as insulation for your house helps to keep you warm in winter, these gases work to keep the planet’s heat from escaping into space. This is known as the greenhouse effect and it is important to help keep the temperature at a favourable level for life on the planet. Without it, the planet would be too cold to for us to live on, and too much of it would make it a hot house. The right balance is what is important.
Since the industrial revolution people have used coal and other fossil fuels to power steam engines, factories and much more. This activity has released an unprecedented amount of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere almost doubling the concentration in the atmosphere.
With this change in concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, it is not strange to see noticeable effects on the climate as we experience today.
NASA’s initiative on global climate change show a clear consensus among scientists that Earth’s Climate Is Warming and that the main cause is the greenhouse effect powered by the increased levels of carbon dioxide. There is now a list of over 200 scientific organisations that stand behind the fact that climate change is caused by human activity.
We see the effects of what is happening everywhere. Ice sheets and glaciers are retreating while sea levels are rising. Arctic sea ice is disappearing. In the spring, snow melts sooner and plants flower earlier. Animals move to higher elevations and latitudes to find cooler conditions. And droughts, floods, and wildfires have all become more extreme. Some of these changes were predicted by models, but now we can see that they are actually happening.
What’s more, the effects of climate change are actually worse than surface temperatures show, because the ocean has absorbed ninety percent of the heat trapped by greenhouse gases. Temperatures have been measured over the last six decades by oceanographic expeditions and networks of floating instruments, and every layer of the ocean is found to be warming up.
When faced with tough facts, our reactions can be many. It is understandable that we as humans go into denial, feel completely overwhelmed, or sink into apathy faced with such a big issue. However, at the end of the day, we all have a choice, and an opportunity to be part of the solution.
As is often the case when big changes are needed, there is no single grandiose solution that will fix this problem. It is a combination of many.
We believe the magic of the cumulative effect of awareness and knowledge that can lead to small steps in the right direction.
Small steps in the right direction, when taken by millions, work wonders!
Find out more about how you can start taking steps to a lower carbon footprint.
