How to Save the World For Free

Environmentalist Natalie Fee – founder of City to Sea, a UK nonprofit seeking to stop plastic pollution – argues that corporations advertise to make you feel bad about yourself, so you’ll buy more stuff, and it’s time to stop buying and be happy anyway. In her short, smart treatise, she suggests myriad ways you can protect the planet.

Plastic

Fee begins by pointing out that since 1965, people have produced more than eight million tons of plastic. The material in straws, plastic lids and coffee cups breaks down into microplastic particles that last forever and, Fee laments, appear in the ocean, seafood and even salt. She tells you to avoid single-use plastics, filter your tap water, bring your own cup when you buy coffee and use paper straws.