One of the most important things we all need to do to help improve the health of the planet is to consider what each of us are doing to help.  Can we reduce the amount of plastic we use, for instance?  Could we recycle more? 

Change.org has a petition at the moment which is looking to tackle the waste of the coffee cups that are thrown away every single day. 

Introduce a 5p Charge on Disposable Coffee Cups

About 2.5 billion disposable coffee cups are thrown away.  Some will be recycled - but far most end up on landfill sites instead and in fact, the petition on Change.org says that if you were to lay out all these cups from end to end, they would go around the world 2.5 times.

The introduction of a 5p charge on carrier bags back in 2015 saw a whopping 83% reduction in their usage, so change is possible.

Introduce a similar charge on coffee cups, and it may encourage people to bring in a resunable cup to coffee shops to get their cup of coffee.  Plus, it may well encournage people to just stop and think before they buy.  

A trial run by Cardiff University showed that a small charge would hugely reduce the piles of waste we all create ever year.   This would stop the cutting down of millions of trees every year (i.e. the destruction of millions of animals homes') for a start. 

As well as taking your own mug into coffee shops, you could also look at making it in a flask to take with you instead.   

You can find out more about the petition to introduce a charge on coffee cups here and sign it as well. 

We have to stop filling the planet with waste, for all our sakes, animals and people.