#And he in fact is incredibly eco-friendly with how he uses recycled material to build his machines and is vegetarian

[dreadful-luck]

drew this in class today!

Thought I’d add this text exchange too.

[renegade-is-in-my-blood]

Hey. Let me tell you about something that has been bothering for a while now. Few months ago while aimlessly scrolling my instagram feed I came  across this photograph shared by one of my favourite activist/photographer /artist instagram story – Jack Harries ( I would also recommend checking out his twin brother Fin Harries – truly inspirational guys) This is the photograph that blew me away:

Amazing right? This photo lead me to Natural Geographic page where I found bunch of alarming articles about plastic pollution. Of course like many of you I knew about this problem before but I never really realized juts how fucked up this situation got and the powerful images they shared truly hit me hard.  Check out some of this articles to learn more.

  There is a bunch of sad environmental videos, photographs or stories I could share with you but that’s not really my goal in this article. What I want to share with you is the ways we all could make a difference and show you some heroes that have been doing their part and don’t get much recognition for all of their hard work.

So here we go:

First of all I want to point you to this website called worldenvironmentday.global and their project BEAT PLASTIC POLLUTION with inspiring slogan if you can’t reuse it, refuse it.

They came up with amazing idea of organized clean up. Basically you can join a clean up event in your location and help get rid of and properly recycle plastic. Here you can learn more about clean ups and also about this app called Litterati which is simply an app tool to help you encourage others to collect plastic.

If you are more of a leader than follower you can organize your own clean up event and register it at this page and share it with people in your location with map of where exactly will the clean up be. Here is how you can register and start and make a difference.

With this organized clean ups I must introduce you someone. His name is Afroz Shah and to be fair I don’t know much about him but I aspire to be like him. This guy does the most amazing clean ups I have ever seen, he does post on his instagram page his clean up results of the week and there has been lot of weeks since he’s been doing this.

This was the picture I saw that led me to Afroz as he was the one of the volunteers. This truly restored my faith in humanity and I feel such satisfaction and relief that there are people who care and do something about plastic problem.

Here are some other photos I screenshoted that supports my theory about unknown hero:

I highly recommend you visit his instagram page HERE  and see for yourself the amazing things he did.

If you’re not into big events such as this you can still do your part by following many eco-friendly tips you can find on the internet and here are some:

The whole point is to reduce the amount of plastic you use every day, and if you are for some reason unable to stop using plastic the least you can do is reuse it. I understand that not all of the time you have your canvas bag with you, or your reusable bottle so you buy cheaper plastic version of this, but I’m sure you could find some use for them afterwards.

The sad thing is how cheap is to get this plastic option instead of ecologically friendly ones and trust me being a drop out student in between jobs, working part-time in KFC – money is heavy step back in my eco life as well. I feel so guilty every time I need to purchase a plastic bag and the amount of plastic waste I create on my own is upsetting. The least I can do is recycle it I – have bunch of plastic bags under my table that separates my plastic, paper and glass trash and once in a while I need to find a recycling bin and separate them. You would think that medicine a pharmacy students would have better access to recycling, but nah – if you want to recycle you must make an effort yourself what is such a difference from my primary school where each of our classes had recycling bins so kids could learn to dispose their trash properly.

This leads me to another topic and that’s leading and teachings kinds to reduce plastic waste. I would recommend you check out this stunning video called Oceans of future by Greenpeace. It’s important we grow sence of responsibility and ecological thinking in this kids. I’m so grateful my parents did that with me.

Since I was little we would always separate plastic or milk cartoons from other trash and recycle them later and my parents do that till this day. They actually fill the truck of our car with plastic and need to drive to recycling bins, because there are none in around our new place.

We would always need to turn off the lights when we would leave the room (sometimes not even when we leave the room – it’s so annoying when your dad turn of the lights off when you’re in the bathroom almost every time), turning the water off when you’re brushing your teeth, washing dishes or shampooing your hair. This might sounds ridiculous to you cuz I believe this things comes naturally to people and I find it useless to even mention such small things but I remember skyping with my grandma when she was living and working in america. She would always ask me if I tun off the water when I’m brushing my teeth and I always found it so weird she would ask me something like that. Of course I do. But the family she was staying at don’t find it as natural as I did and it was upsetting my grandma a lot.

We would always make fun of our family’s plastic bag full of plastic bags we would take whenever we went shopping, but once I moved out and lived on my own I realized how clever this idea is and now I have my own plastic bag of plastic bags.

I feel it’s important to put this sence of responsibility into kids and you can always do it in some fun kid friendly way. My parents would for example give me and my sisters bag and we would have to collect trash around our building – make a competition out of clean ups – who collects the most?

There is just no wrong or too little way to save the world.

How to be more eco-friendly if you work for larger corporations?

I currently work for large fast food chain restaurant KFC and let me tell you the amount of waste our single small store creates is alarming. The amount of food and plastic waste is unbelievable and the sad fact remains that single-handed part-time worker in such corporation can’t do literally anything without risking their jobs.

We do have separated trash bins for plastic, bio and mix waste, but we also have to throw all of the meat out once it reach its expiration period of extremely short 30 min! As a former vegetarian the amount of chicken meat, energy wasted for its preparation and basic situation of world hunger depresses me a lot. So what can I do  as an individual ? Girls gotta eat and pay bills.

Sadly I did not figure out answer to this question yet besides to push the big bosses into doing eco-friendly changes for whole restaurant chain. We did switched to paper to-go cups instead of plastic and we also use paper bags what is incredible step forward, but the amount of plastic straws is still bad and hopefully we would also make some changes like our competition did hat really pleases me :

Being a middle european I don’t really understand the demand for straws or ice, but switching to reusable metal straw could make a difference and prevent this from happening:

Of course I understand that if I refuse plastic straw at 27th June 2018  7pm from a cashier at fast food restaurant who has to offer me one I’m not gonna save the world – but if the fast food stops/reduce offering one – this might be actually a huge step  forward.

Why do I even write this?

Let me be so full of myself and believe that one day some big animal in some firm would come across this article, or some family member of their would mention Beat plastic pollution project to them and light up a spark of thought process in someone who actually could make bigger impact on environment.

Spread the word, get inspired, some people are really trying to make a change – why not be one of them ?

I’m not saying I’m perfect, I still occasionally buy plastic bag or bottle, I don’t always recycle materials that should be recycled and sometimes I’m just lazy and put plastic into mix trash can. But I also switch to bamboo toothbrush instead of plastic, I ordered bunch of canvas shopping bags (that would get deliver to me in plastic bag – how ridiculous is that? There should be something done by this issue as well, or the recipes – most of us don’t need them and sure as hell don’t have any way to reuse it – you might refuse it but that doesn’t mean it’s not gonna get printed anyway) and the least I can do is trying to be better and spread the word to people who care and even to those who don’t .

Also not every time is our effort met with actual results. I’m talking about fake recycling bins where all of the garbage ends up in same place without any recycling whatsoever. So if you see something like this in your building call out the authorities about it! Some of us are actually trying for crying out loud !

The amount of waste that ends up in oceans is just heart breaking. I grew up in a country without access to ocean and I only got to see sea or ocean at our summer family holidays and the memories  have from those trips do not meet the sad reality of how bad ocean pollution got.

Simple hard-working individual can not make a difference unless the individuals with actual powers makes changes to preserve the earth. But I feel like I’m slipping back into depressing side of this issue but I really want to point to positive effort of many people involve in helping solve this plastic pollution problem.

There is a note at our fridge in our dorms shared kitchen that states: “Our problem is that we believe someone else is gonna save the world” after one neighbour of mine got upset about number of plastic people from our hall were throwing away.

If you wat to make a difference but don’t know how to start here you can take  pledge at national geographic with simple tips of what to do to reduce your plastic waste.

Take your pledge

  Thank you so much for your attention

xo Natalia

    Beat Plastic Pollution Hey. Let me tell you about something that has been bothering for a while now. Few months ago while aimlessly scrolling my instagram feed I came  across this photograph shared by one of my favourite activist/photographer /artist instagram story - …

[wemustbearwitness-blog]

Day Four: Cold War Day

Today is WWII/Cold War Day. I forgot to mention that there is a Michelin Star Restaurant in our hotel. That’s relevant because we eat in there every morning for breakfast because the main dining room for breakfast is being refurnished. I can official say I have eaten in a Michelin Star Restaurant! 

Our first activity of the day was the Berliner Unterwelten, or Berlin Underground. We had the incredible opportunity to take a tour through one of the only remaining WWII bunkers in the city. After the Soviets took control of the city, they destroyed most of the bunkers to ensure that Germany could never again start a war. The reason this particular shelter wasn’t destroyed is because it was built next to the Subway so it would’ve been unwise to blow it up. It is important to mention that these bunkers are not bomb-proof, they are merely air-raid shelters which, if hit, would actually collapse. So why build them you may ask? Well, it made people feel safe to go underground so it had more of a psychological effect than anything. When Hitler rose to power he promised the German people that he was going to make steel bomb shelters and an incredible air force for the impending war. He promised the German people that no planes would fly over the Berlin city and that he would protect them. The latest shocker... he lied. Hitler put all of the government funding into building a secret air force because, after WWI, Germany was not allowed to have an air force. As a result, the German people got non bomb proof bunkers. The only shelters which were actually bomb proof were above ground and there were only three in the city. As a result, only 10% of the city could fit in these bunkers both above and underground. The rest of the city was forced to hide in their cellars and as a result, many people died from the bombings. The bunkers were a fascinating tour. We first walked through the toilets first which were separated by men and women of course. During WWII, the Germans created their own word for toilet, Abort, because the traditional words toilette (French) and water closet (British) were words of the enemy. Additionally, WC stood for Winston Churchill so obviously there had to be another word created. Today, nobody in Germany uses the word Abort. Only WC and toilette. The toilets in this particular bunker had plumbing but not all did. Some used soil to mask the smell and became eco-friendly toilets. The waste was used to sprinkle on the potatoes for fertilizer. Our tour guide was funny. The toilets generally were relatively small, but she showed us one bigger toilet in the corner. It looked different from the others. Evidently, it was a toilet from an SS bunker. She called it the toilet for the “big assholes.” The next room was very cool. It had glow in the dark paint (toxic of course). We couldn’t touch the walls. The glow in the dark paint was used for two purposes: 1) when the power went out in the bunkers they used the paint so people could see as not to cause a panic, and 2) business people had to spend the daytime in the bunkers after 1943 and they had to be able to see their papers even when the power went out. After 1943, there were air raids during the day by the Soviets and at night by the British. These raids would last an hour to an hour and a half and worst of all, oxygen availability was a large concern. The bunkers had no ventilation system and they were 4 times overcrowded. As a result, they had to use candles set at three different heights to gauge the oxygen availability. The oxygen closest to the ground would run out so the first candle on the floor would go out. Then, the second candle on the bench would go out and the people would have to stand up. If the candle set just below their heads went out, panic would ensue and people would have to fight there way out of the bunker. This did happen during the war. Certain shelters had beds in them for working mothers and their children. Certain bunker rooms had artifacts from the war. There was even an enigma machine on display-- this was extremely cool. One room contained a cart which was used by German women to remove the rubble after the War in an attempt to clean out Berlin. Any materials that were found were recycled as Berlin was destroyed and Germany suffered from a terrible famine. For example, a helmet was on display that had been converted into a colander. Part of a bomb casing was used to make an outdoor stove. People, German women especially, had to be resourceful in attempting to rebuild their lives with very few resources. An interesting fact that we learned in the bunker is that Europe is still finding bombs from WWII that were not detonated. In fact, Berlin alone finds on average one bomb per month! When that happens, they have to evacuate the area and attempt to deactivate it because there is still a risk of it going off. In some horrible cases, a bomb explodes in the city-- most often during construction. Other cities in Germany are even more bomb-ridden. Hamburg for example, finds on average 1.5 bombs per month. Anytime companies build on German soil they have to make sure that no bombs are on the land because if they buy it then the bomb becomes their own property. In Germany, the government does not pay for the bomb deactivation because they believe that the bombs don’t belong to them. In England, the government pays for bomb deactivation when they are found (which is also pretty often evidently). In the bunker tour, we did discuss the Furhrerbunker which is the fully bomb-proof bunker that Hitler made for himself in Berlin and where he lived his final days before his suicide. The Furhrerbunker was attempted to be destroyed multiple times but due to it’s fierce construction it was never able to be fully annihilated. Despite this, Germany has decided to completely seal it shut. Never to be reopened. They feared that keeping it as a historical site would attract Neo-Nazis. 

Something that I find very difficult during this trip is the concept of good and evil and how no longer do I see that definitive line. For example, the tour guide in the bunkers, clearly anti-Nazi, was portraying the history in a manner which made the listener feel sympathetic for the German civilians. She discussed the terrible danger and fear that the German civilians as well as the harsh realities of their situation. For example, she told a story of a hypothetical German woman with two children who lost their home in an air-raid. Freezing, they had nothing to wear and the German army brought them clothing to wear. The woman puts on her coat and notices the name of a polish, Jewish last name. She thinks about where this coat came from, but in the moment, she was freezing with no place to live and just wanted to stay warm. It seems that in many cases, German people knew of what had been happening to the Jews, but were also preoccupied with their own safety and survival. It seems that after 1939, all chance to dissent the Nazis had long passed. I find it difficult to blame the German people after that point because resistance meant arrest and death. The Nazis utilized fear in every aspect of their rule. For example, if you forgot to black-out your windows at night, the Nazis assumed you were a traitor trying to help the enemy see the city at night and they’d arrest you or kill you. In short, I’m learning the importance of questioning and dissenting is crucial in the early stages of injustice. The small injustices that the German people ignored early on rendered them powerless when it mattered most. Silence during the initial stages of anti-semitism and racism makes one a collaborator and the inability of the German people to protest or speak out later on does not dissolve them of their responsibility. Some German officers had worked for the German army their entire lives and did not question the army when the Nazis came to power and later found themselves doing unimaginable things and fighting for an unjust, inhumane cause. We, as people, have the responsibility to question everything and trust nothing at face value. I truly felt bad for the German civilians who had to endure the constant fear during the end of the war, but I also feel angry at them for staying quiet when the issues did not involve them in the beginning. It’s easy to sympathize with the German civilians after 1939, but what about the years leading up to that in which the German people fueled Hitler’s horrific dreams? I remain confused and disheartened. 

After the bunker, we took a bus tour of Berlin. The tour guide was very nice and I dozed a little while I listened to the tour. We got to see many of the Embassy’s around the city. We also saw some incredible art on the Berlin Wall created by artists around the world. The one pictured above is Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev giving the East Germany President Erich Honecker a passionate kiss on the lips-- this is evidently the Soviet greeting. The blurry street sign is a photo of Tiergartenstrase, the street where Hitler opened the T4 program. The name T4 is an abbreviation of Tiergartenstraße 4, the street address of the Chancellery department set up in spring 1940 in the Berlin borough of Tiergarten, which recruited and paid personnel associated with T4. Under the program certain German physicians were authorized to sign off patients "deemed incurably sick” and they euthanized them. In reality, this was the systemized murder of those deemed unworthy of life by the Reich due to a disability. Many of these patients were children. 

After the tour, we were allowed to explore the city for lunch. I finally got to try a Berlin Döner, which is a type of lamb schwarma famous in Berlin. It was delicious. 

After lunch we went to the Holocaust memorial in the city which contains a museum underground. The memorial and museum are done well. The memorial quite literally looks like a scar on the Berlin city. It is grey concrete blocks of all different sizes spanning a square in all directions. You can walk in between the blocks and in come cases they span as high above your head. It was designed by architect Peter Eisenman. 

After the Holocaust memorial, we went for dinner on our own in the city. Myself and some of the girls on the trip went for sushi. It was good! I got to try some German beer which was exciting. After that, we went to a show at the Friedrichstadt-Palast Berlin entitled, The One. We had incredible seats close to the stage (my iphone picture does not do the distance justice). It reminded me of cirque du soleil combined with erotic S&M costume choice all conveyed through the dream of a young man confronting his demons and searching for his soulmate. It was definitely not an American show-- that’s what was so cool about it. It was crazy, and the acrobatics were incredible. Our group leader wanted to do something fun to take our minds off of the heavy topic for a night. He succeeded. 

[simaspear850-blog]

Complications From Hemorrhoid Surgical Operation

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