‘Think Planet’ may be a ‘trendy’ term that you’ve probably seen all over the place. It’s in hotel rooms, on websites, in shops. So, what does it mean to you?
I’m going to leave you to decide that. Here, I want to tell you what it means to me.
What ‘Think Planet’ means to me
I’ve been doing a lot of thinking recently about my motivation in various parts of life. Don’t worry: I’m not about to bore you with the details of my thoughts. But most of it comes down to the same thing: doing my best and trying to be helpful.
So, in my health, it’s about helping myself to heal.
In my business – the bit that concerns you – it’s about helping you to bead. So, that might be helping you gain new skills. Or, just simply giving you new ideas and challenges to enjoy.
All of that also impacts upon the wider world. So, I feel that means a duty to help the planet too.
If I’m honest, beading isn’t the most ‘green’ hobby. If I stop and think about the number of air and road miles our beads travel to get from factory to us, it’s probably not great for the environment. I can’t change that, but there are areas that I can change.
Packaging is one of those areas. Currently, we are all being encouraged to move away from single use plastic bags and containers. Well, what do beads come in? Plastic bags and containers… But, they don’t have to be single use.
So, I’m trying to be a little more mindful of packaging when it comes to beading.
Mindful Packaging
I don’t throw away my old plastic bead tubes or bags when I’ve emptied them (unless they’re broken – in which case, I recycle where I can). No, I try and save them to re-use later. So, I have larger bags and boxes full of these, ready to grab when I need one.
That means some of your packaging for beads and kits will be bags that I’ve re-used. I invite you to use them again yourself. If you want some creative bead storage ideas, try this blog>>
I also invite you to re-use the pretty pink envelopes that I send to you when you order books, kits or beads. I have selected these carefully so that they can be re-used successfully. The address labels will peel off without causing damage. If you open the envelopes carefully, you can also then re-seal them with Sellotape and send a little love on to someone else.
Why we don’t need perfection…
Now, I’m not writing this as some kind of Saint. I’m well aware that there are plenty of areas where I’m not ‘good’ in an environmental sense. It’s easy to say, ‘I can’t do it all’ and then make that an excuse for not doing anything.
I just wanted to invite you to think of an area where you can make an improvement. If each of us makes some sort of improvement, that individual effort may not seem like much. But the collective results could be amazing.
So, if you have any suggestions for me, please let me know. I promise that I will continue to think about ways in which I can make more improvements in my business.
I also invite you to try and do something to ‘Think Planet’ today. And, if you want a little reward for doing that, check out this blog>>
One final thought…
There are many reasons that prompted me to ‘Think Planet’. Did anybody see the amazing documentary, ‘Blue Planet 2’? Aside from celebrating our wonderful oceans and seas, it also gave much food for thought about the way humanity has been treating them.
I also wanted to share this blog post with you. It comes from the company that delivers my food and they are certainly right up there in promoting an eco-friendly way of producing and shipping food for their customers.
As they say, much of what we do is about trying to be ‘less bad’. Remember, nothing in life is black and white. Plastic may be the current enemy, but it is sobering to realise that other areas that we may regard as ‘green’, still leave a lot to be desired.
So, if the actions and messages spread by others are impacting on me, you can be sure that if you also spread the word, you will impact on others too.
