Kratom is compatible with a sustainable lifestyle. But first, what is sustainable living? The idea is simple: every decision you make leads to an eco-friendly outcome, reducing waste and carbon emissions. In turn, your day-to-day life will become more energy efficient and environmentally friendly. Believe it or not, this can have global implications, and kratom can play a role in living sustainably.
Why is Living a Sustainable Lifestyle Important?
Sustainable living is meaningful because the decisions we make have an impact on the future of our world. We should want to leave a healthy and hospitable world for future generations. Furthermore, transitioning to a more environmentally friendly way of life allows us to overcome some of the great systemic issues within our societies.
One of the most prominent examples comes from environmental degradation. Who is most affected by a weakening environment? The impoverished and children. Poorer demographics often live in communities that are more likely to face ecological disasters like flooding and droughts. These environmental disasters are exacerbated by climate change, destroying food sources, and polluting water supplies for these impoverished communities.
Children, on the other hand, possess undeveloped immune systems. The more carbon emissions that enter the atmosphere, the more our air becomes harder for children to breathe. Over time, more children may develop lung-related ailments like asthma or emphysema. Not to mention the detrimental psychological impacts of inheriting a dying world.
Living an eco-friendly, sustainable lifestyle is not just important for future generations, but for current generations. This is why it’s important to examine the choices you make, ensuring that these choices lead to environmentally friendly outcomes that can help at-risk demographics live healthier lives.
In What Ways Are We Not Sustainable?
Unfortunately, we are not conditioned to live sustainably. How so? As previously stated, all of our decisions influence the environment. Such decisions include:
- What we decide to consume.
- How we choose to get to work or travel.
- Where we decide to shop.
- Which products we choose to use.
In the United States, people generally prefer personal transportation like cars and trucks to public transportation like buses or subways. Personal-use vehicles release much more carbon emissions into the atmosphere than community-use transit.
Furthermore, are you researching each and every brand you buy in the grocery store, making sure that the companies you support are manufacturing their products in an eco-friendly manner? Probably not. Why? Because it takes effort to do so. We’re not calling you lazy. We’re merely saying that we’ve been conditioned to not live a sustainable lifestyle.
Recent history may explain this. Economic development in the post-World War II era placed little focus on environmental considerations, instead opting for economic development. We fashioned manufacturing practices with little concern for anything other than the economy. In fact, the term “global warming” didn’t even exist until 1975. By then, human beings were already far up the carbon emissions ladder.
What are some of the specific ways we’ve been conditioned not to live sustainably?
Creating Waste
Human beings create a lot of waste. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the United States created 267.8 million tons of municipal solid waste in 2017, the most recent year with available data. That means that every individual, including you and me, produced about 4.51 pounds of waste per day.
Reducing waste is vitally important for living a sustainable lifestyle. According to the same EPA article, about 139 million tons – or 52.1 percent – of that waste was disposed of in a landfill, unable to be recycled or repurposed for additional uses.
Landfills pollute local environments. It’s estimated that about two-thirds of all landfilled waste is biodegradable, meaning it decomposes and releases harmful gases that contribute to carbon emissions and the greenhouse effect.
Fortunately for everyday consumers, there’s the “Three R’s” rule: reduce, reuse, recycle. This means that every person, in order to live more sustainably, should reduce the number of potential waste products that they use. For example, using fewer paper towels, reusing plastic bags, or recycling all of your plastics.
By following the Three R’s and reducing waste, you can ensure that less trash ends up in landfills. If less trash finds its way to a landfill, fewer greenhouse gases are released into the environment.
Creating Carbon Emissions
Reducing waste isn’t one of the only things we must do to lead a more sustainable lifestyle. There’s another key issue facing human consumption that directly contributes to our degrading environment: carbon emissions.
Humans love vehicles: we drive cars, use planes to travel internationally; we even use submarines to explore deep underwater. However, these vehicles all create carbon emissions: powerful greenhouse gases that trap heat and are unable to leave our atmosphere.
Carbon is the king of these gases. In 2017, it was estimated that humans created about 5.1 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide, all of which was released into the atmosphere as greenhouse gases, one of our environment’s biggest killers and sustainable living practices.
Fortunately, there are easy ways to reduce your carbon footprint: your ability to make decisions that reduce your personal carbon emissions. How?
- Use public transportation or even use a bicycle instead of a car.
- Use water only as necessary: reducing water usage conserves water, and our water supply is limited.
- Eat locally-grown, seasonal foods whenever possible: farmer’s markets know what’s good for you and your sustainable lifestyle!
- Try to be more energy efficient: it can be difficult (and expensive) but use solar or wind power whenever possible.
Reducing waste can also help you to reduce your carbon footprint, relieving the atmosphere of the harms from both your personal landfill waste and carbon emissions.
Ways Kratom Influences Sustainable Living
Kratom products can actually contribute to your sustainable lifestyle. At Kratom Spot, we strive to make all of our decisions as eco-friendly as possible! Why? Because we care about the state of our world and want to offer a product that can help you live a more environmentally friendly, sustainable routine.
But how does kratom specifically aid sustainable living?
Kratom Farming: Eco-Friendly & Energy Efficient
Kratom farming is one of the most sustainable agricultural practices on the planet. Kratom grows naturally in rainforests all over Southeast Asia. The farmers in these regions practice decentralized cultivation: an energy efficient means of farming that does not rely on the cultivation of fields or plantations. Decentralized cultivation instead allows for kratom plants to grow alongside these rainforests’ natural biodiversity, maintaining the area’s environmental health.
In addition, wildlife habitats in these areas go undisturbed by kratom farmers. When vast forests are clear-cut for such things as palm or timber production, habitats are wholly destroyed. With kratom, these habitats are untouched, contributing to an environmentally friendly manufacturing cycle. The same cannot be said about plantation-based agriculture.
Furthermore, kratom farming is sustainable: farmers want to ensure an adequate supply of kratom leaves to both today’s world and future generations. They do so through a practice known as selective pruning: only the ripest leaves of a kratom tree are harvested, the rest of the leaves left untouched until the next harvest.
Selective pruning allows for the kratom plants to grow strong and healthy, maintaining much or their health between harvests. In these ways, kratom consumers are supporting more eco-friendly agricultural practices. In turn, kratom contributes to a more environmentally friendly, sustainable lifestyle.
Disrupting the Palm Oil Industry
Palm oil is an edible vegetable oil derived from the oil palm tree, native to Africa, but introduced to Southeast Asian rainforests. However, there are many reasons why the palm oil industry presents a problem for sustainable living:
- Palm oil trees release huge carbon emissions as rainforests are cut down.
- Palm oil plantations contribute to rising global temperatures.
- Palm oil manufacturing directly threatens 193 of the world’s critically endangered species.
In addition, palm oil is found in just about every product you use: shampoo, lipstick, soap, instant noodles, bread, ice cream, chocolate, margarine, pizza dough– the list goes on and on.
Luckily, the agricultural kratom industry competes directly with the palm oil industry. In Southeast Asia, specifically, farmers are often drawn to the financial allure of palm oil farming. Because the demand is so high, these farmers think the financial ends justify the environmentally unstable means.
But as kratom increases in popularity and the demand increases, farmers in these tropical regions no longer have to choose between environmentally friendly, sustainable living or wealth. With kratom farming, they can achieve both, passing the eco-friendly rewards off to you as the consumer.
Live a Sustainable Lifestyle with Kratom
Sustainable living can be difficult. However, the impact you can have is immense. Leading a sustainable lifestyle with kratom allows you to help preserve the health and safety of our world for generations to come.
Just remember: reducing waste and carbon emissions can go a long, long way for creating a cleaner environment. Plus, turning to natural products like kratom that rely on sustainable agricultural practices can greatly reduce your carbon footprint. Together, we can change the world.