Blog Posts

In recent years, people have been worrying about the situation of the planet and are carrying out various cultural, social, and especially business activities to mitigate the damage caused by climate change through ecological businesses.

Dixie Arteaga Quiroz, general manager of Azul Consultores, indicates that a company becomes socially responsible when “it understands the importance of the balance that must exist between profitability and the least impact on the community with the environment and the benefit that from their work they can generate ”.

Carrying out an ecological business, Arteaga explains, depends on various factors such as the type of business you want to start, where it will be located, who it is aimed at, and the impact it can have on the population. “Experience tells us that to find the appropriate strategies, first the business must have a clear diagnosis of its skate holders and it is on the basis of this analysis that such strategies must be implemented,” adds Arteaga.

Here we present 7 ecological business ideas that can work in our country due to the need that still needs to be covered in certain sectors of the population.

PET Recycling

To start a PET bottle recycling business, you first have to collect the plastic and then sell it to the industries that are responsible for shredding them. After that, you can save money to start buying special shredding and bale-making machines. If you are interested in opening a business of this type, you will need the following implements: a land or house to store the bottles, cloth bags to take them to the company where the bottles will be sold, and a means of transport. The profit margin, if you are your own employee, will be 80%, while if you decide to make a profit it will be approximately 40% since you will have to pay staff and assume costs for work tools. This will allow you to have a sustainable business based on recycling.

Biomass Boilers

Biomass is that organic matter of animal or vegetable origin that can be used energetically. Creating an ecological business based on the use of a boiler made of this material would benefit those families who live in places where there is no electricity and the cold is intense. This is because it would produce the heat and energy necessary for them to live.

Ecological Carwash

According to the Automotive Association of Peru, in Lima alone, there are around 1,700,000 vehicles, a figure that can be used to generate sustainable businesses such as ecological carwash. This idea of ​​ecological entrepreneurship is characterized by the fact that it does not require water to wash the car and the products used do not damage the paint of the car, do not generate an accumulation of water or polluting residues, and contribute to the care of the environment. Another benefit of this sustainable business is that the service can be done at home, also helping to ensure that the car is not transported to the area where the dry cleaning workshop is located.

Sale of Water Purifiers

These purifiers will be very useful for those people who have been victims of a natural disaster, in addition to avoiding the process of boiling water, which saves gas and prevents pollution through firewood combustion.

Solar Panels

Carrying out this type of business is simple and you can do it at home since a panel is built with a polymer base, solar panels (which you will join one with another at the base), epoxy resin, and an electrical converter. This initiative will help houses that do not have electricity to be able to illuminate themselves and have a better quality of life.

Manufacture of Ecological Diapers

These types of diapers are made in the same way as modern diapers, but the only difference is that they are made of cloth. Compared to the old diapers made of this material, inside they contain biodegradable papers which will be discarded at the time of use, only leaving the fabric to be washed.

Sustainable Constructions

These types of buildings seek to generate a lower impact on the environment and a greater positive impact on the people who inhabit it thanks to the proper management of various natural resources such as water and energy. The design of this type of construction is based on the climate of the area, green areas, and recreation areas; which have to be made with material close to the place (to promote savings in transport and energy) and they have to be reusable.

You may also be interested in There’s still time! Together we can save our planet.

By land, air, and water, pollutants produced by humans harm the different natural environments. Knowing the causes of environmental pollution is the first step to avoid deterioration of the planet and thus take the appropriate actions to build a more sustainable future.

The planet continually reminds us, and more and more recurrently, that if we alter its balance, the consequences are devastating through droughts, mega-fires, floods, loss of biodiversity, and increasingly ferocious natural disasters. Climate change is already a reality and thousands of people, animals, and plants suffer its effects.

Pollution is nothing more than an incentive that makes the climate crisis progress uncontrollably. We refer to the polluting environment as the entry of harmful chemicals into a given environment. This phenomenon affects the balance of said environment and makes it an unsafe environment.

The environment and its ecosystems suffer directly from the damaging effects. And it is that pollution is a negative alteration of the natural state of the living beings that inhabit the planet. The causes of this type of pollution depend on several agents that vary according to the ecosystem they affect.

Throughout history, human activity has been the main source of pollution on the planet. This has caused the contamination of our environments and the alteration of the ecological balance of the planet. Pollution poses a risk to the health of all living beings on the planet.

The World Health Organization already affirms that most of the citizens reside in areas where pollution is present, exceeding the limits established as healthy. And there are many substances that have a negative impact not only on human health but also on thousands of species of animals and plants that see their habitats altered by the effects of pollution.

Types of pollution

There are different types of pollutants that can be chemical substances, such as pesticides, cyanide, herbicides …, urban waste, oil, or ionizing radiation. However, one thing they have in common is that they cause disease and damage the environment in an alarming way. The rapid advance of climate change is nothing more than an accelerator that fuels this global problem.

However, to know the causes of pollution we must first learn to differentiate the different types of pollution based on their origin. These might be:

Natural:

Caused by phenomena such as forest fires, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, or earthquakes.

Artificial:

Caused by human activity (polluting effects: industrial activity, chemical products, etc.). As for the interruption of the natural cycles of the ecosystem, the misuse of natural resources, or the mismanagement of waste.

What are the causes of environmental pollution?

Pollution occurs as a consequence of two important factors: the increase in the human population and the uncontrollable advance of industrial development. Both cause an imbalance in the environment in the face of different physical, chemical, or biological pollutants:

Chemical pollutants:

They come from the chemical industry, where toxic products such as acids, organic solvents, plastics, petroleum derivatives, synthetic fertilizers, and pesticides are generated.

Physical agents:

They come from actions caused by human activity such as noise, radioactivity, heat, and electromagnetic energy.

Biological contaminants:

Caused by the decomposition and fermentation of organic waste such as excrement, sawdust from the forestry industry, paper, waste from factories or drains.

As we have explained, each of these pollutants has a negative effect on the natural environment, but their causes and effects vary depending on whether they affect water, air, or soil.

Causes of the contamination of the water

Water pollution occurs when its composition is altered by the presence of some substance or pollutant. This is when we talk about contaminated water. which is one that not only does not meet the necessary conditions to be used for consumption but is also harmful to ecosystems.

It is increasingly common for places with clean and crystalline water such as the waters of the Ganges River to become a symbol of water pollution on the planet. And it is that water pollution already affects one in three inhabitants, according to estimates by the United Nations (UN).

Among the causes of pollution, the alteration of water by pollutants is one of the most serious given the importance of this resource for life on the planet.

The main polluting factors of water are:

• Discharges of sewage: sewage fluids, urban and industrial that are not treated appropriately.
• Oil Spills: They come from oil drilling that has an accident or improper practice.
• Phytosanitary products: they are used to spray the fields. They are then absorbed by the earth and reach the groundwater.
• Deforestation: indiscriminate felling of trees causes the appearance of bacteria in the soil. They seep into the soil and pollute the water underground.
• Increase in temperature: thermal pollution causes a decrease in oxygen in the water and alters its entire composition.

The WHO warns that the consumption of contaminated water claims, each year, more than 50,000 global deaths and transmits diseases such as cholera, dysentery, or typhoid fever. Water is vital for life. However, their scarcity is a global problem that we must solve as soon as possible.

Plastics, phosphates, and poor waste treatment in some regions of the world are the main pollutants that make water a dangerous resource for living beings.

The climate emergency is aggravating this problem considerably. And it is that the increase in CO2 emissions into the atmosphere causes an increase in global temperature that affects the temperature of the oceans. This causes the water to heat up and oxygen levels to decrease, making seas and rivers uninhabitable for marine species.

The dumping of waste into the sea is another of the polluting sources that cause water pollution. The UN ensures that more than 80% of wastewater reaches the seas and oceans without treatment. For this reason, from Aquae Foundation we share a series of tips to avoid pollution of the sea.

Causes of air pollution

The pollution of the air is a mixture of solid particles and gases in the air we breathe. The main causes of this type of pollution related to burning fossil fuels like coal, oil, and gas whose main home is in the industrial sector, extraction of oil wells, and road transport.

The main sources that produce polluting gases:

• The extraction of hydrocarbons from the oil, coal, and gas fields.
• Combustion of fuels by transportation.
• The digestive process of cattle by the massive agricultural-livestock industry.
• Microbial activity in sewage.
• The burning of tropical forests.

The increase in the emission of greenhouse gases is one of the main causes of polluting the environment. And it is that the air of the atmosphere contains natural gases that fulfill vital functions so that life on our planet is possible. An example of this is that these gases are capable of retaining the sun’s rays that pass through the different layers of the Earth, thus helping to regulate the temperature and protecting humans from ultraviolet radiation.

However, when these gases increase considerably, the natural balance is broken. This causes devastating effects such as global warming, the melting of the poles, the decrease in water resources, the risk of survival of thousands of species, and alterations in the climate that affect the lives of all living beings.

Climate change is accelerating all these phenomena. Renewable energies, recycling, and greater environmental awareness by citizens are key to ending pollution and its effects.

Causes of soil contamination

The increased use of chemical compounds in different products and poor waste management are some of the most obvious causes of soil contamination. All of them have the human being as the main cause causing an alteration of the earth’s surface. Some examples of this type of pollution can be seen in:

Underground storages:

Contain liquids and gases derived from petroleum that come into contact with the earth through leaks from pipes.

Pesticides

It is the main cause of soil contamination due to a large number of chemicals it contains and that the earth absorbs until it reaches groundwater.

Urban waste:

Domestic and commercial garbage that is not properly treated to avoid its negative environmental impact. Those wastes that do not decompose remain for hundreds of years on land and in water.

Industrial waste:

Pesticides, chemical liquids, and fuel and metal residues come from textile, paper, food, and oil production.

Mining:

The work of a mine generates a huge environmental impact on the ecosystem. Examples of this are certain changes in the morphology of the terrain or air and soil pollution.

Heavy metals, hydrocarbons, pesticides, and acidic substances are the main pollutants on earth. The problem with the presence of these substances is that they are absorbed by the soil, affecting the quality of the crops. Pollutant particles are absorbed by vegetation, which when consumed by animals and humans become part of the trophic chain.

Consequences of environmental pollution

There are many consequences that pollution has on our planet and all of them generate great concern for its effects on the health of both our natural environment and that of its citizens.

Global warming

The main consequence of pollution is global warming. This phenomenon involves a considerable increase in the planet’s temperature progressively both at the atmospheric level and in the seas and oceans.

Black carbon, tropospheric ozone, and methane are responsible for between 30% and 40% of global warming, according to the Climate and Clean Air Coalition. All this causes the summers to be much hotter and the average temperatures last less and less time.

Disease development

Environment polluting poses a risk to human health as well as to the living beings that inhabit ecosystems.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), air pollution, derived from the presence of pollutants such as carbon monoxide, increases the chances of suffering from diseases or even causing death. Among them, we find acute respiratory diseases, such as pneumonia, and chronic diseases such as lung cancer and cardiovascular diseases.

Loss of biodiversity

Indiscriminate logging, excessive exploitation of natural resources, and the emission of polluting gases into the atmosphere threaten the lives of thousands of species of animals and plants. This is mainly due to the fact that their habitat is reduced and causes some of them to even go extinct.

In short, environmental pollution does nothing more than alter our natural balance. On our side is to reduce its effects. And it is that between all we must join efforts to walk towards the construction of a much more responsible society that manages to commit the different generations with the care and respect of nature.

You may also like to read Eco-friendly travel: 10 tips to follow

The greenhouse effect is the phenomenon that, under normal conditions, allows life on planet earth as we know it. It is the effect by which the sun’s heat that reaches the earth is not bounced back to space in its entirety and remains in a certain percentage, giving rise to an ideal temperature for life on planet earth (animals, plants, beings alive …).

Are greenhouses good or bad for the environment?

The earth’s atmosphere and the gases that make it up are the layers that retain and returns to the earth part of that heat from the sun reaches the earth’s surface and is reflected into space. The term greenhouse effect is used because the earth’s atmosphere does a job similar to that done by plastic tents in greenhouse orchards.

Effect of greenhouses

The problem has arisen when, as a result of human activity and industrial and social growth, the amount of gases in the atmosphere with properties to cause this greenhouse effect has increased disproportionately and in very short times. By increasing the proportion of greenhouse gases above-normal concentrations, the terrestrial natural greenhouse effect has multiplied, leading to a harmful phenomenon.

This increased quantity of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere can have diverse and debatable consequences. Still, mainly it can lead to an increase in global terrestrial temperature and trigger collapse effects in marine currents, atmospheric movements, and terrestrial dynamics in general. It is giving rise to final consequences that are difficult to quantify and predictable (rise in sea level, movement of species, the disappearance of species, melting of the poles …). When the greenhouse effect becomes a phenomenon with negative consequences for planetary life, it is often referred to as climate change.

But it must also be said that throughout the history of the planet, the climate had nothing to do with what we now know and climate change phenomena have occurred, going from glacial periods to interglacial periods ( like the one we are in right now). The difference between what happens now with what has been happening throughout geological times is that the change is being forced to happen quickly since it is not occurring naturally but is being caused by an increase in greenhouse gases from human activities.

What is and how is the greenhouse effect produced?

The greenhouse effect occurs when certain gases retain a part of the Earth’s soil’s energy when heated by radiation from the sun. This phenomenon happens naturally. Thanks to it, the Earth’s average temperature is about 14º C. Otherwise, it would be around 18º C below zero, which would make life on our planet very difficult.

The problem happens when those greenhouse gases increase in the atmosphere. Then, the amount of energy that is not released into space also increases and, with it, the Earth’s temperature.

Consequences of the greenhouse effect and climate change

According to the Global Climate Report, every month except one has been hotter than average since 1977. The consequences of the greenhouse effect and climate change for our planet are catastrophic. Stop imagining them because we reveal them to you below.

Thaw

As a consequence of global warming, large glacial masses are disappearing. This, in turn, translates into a decrease in solar radiation that the Earth’s surface returns to the atmosphere, the rise in sea level, and the release of large amounts of methane.

Floods on the coast and islands

The survival of coastal populations is at risk. From 1901 to 2020, the mean sea level has risen 19 centimeters. The forecast is that in 2100 it will increase another 15 or 90 centimeters more, putting 92 million people in danger.

Fiercest hurricanes

The greenhouse effect is not the cause of these natural phenomena, but it does increase their magnitude. The creation of hurricanes is directly related to the temperature of the sea.

Migrations to survive rising temperatures and climate change, certain species and people have to migrate. The World Bank is warning us that in 2050, some 140 million people could be forced to leave their place of origin due to droughts or floods.

Desertification Global warming dramatically affects the soil, degrading it to the point of large desertifying areas. This phenomenon is destroying the biological balance, turning fertile lands into barren and unproductive. As the UN indicates, 30% of the lands are already degraded and have lost their real value.

Damage to agriculture and livestock

Therefore, the seasons’ duration and the growth times in some areas of the planet have already been altered. Also, the increase in temperature favors insect pests, invasive grasses, and diseases. Livestock is also affected by global warming: changes in its metabolism, health, reproduction, etc.

Famines and food shortages

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) is concerned about how climate change affects food availability. It warns that if there is a decrease in agricultural production, the consequence would be food shortages.

Diseases and pandemics

Global warming causes infectious diseases such as malaria, cholera, or dengue to spread to areas of the planet where they were not common. Also, people will suffer more cardiovascular and respiratory problems due to the increase in heat.

From getting out of the car to privilege the use of the bicycle to demanding that politicians assume their responsibilities.

It is never too late to do something for the planet. Each individual must do what they can to reduce their ecological footprint and protect the environment.

Here is a list of ten ways you can help mother earth from your home. These measurements may look insignificant at the moment, but over time they make a big difference.

Travel Responsibly

Walking or cycling to go from point A to point B is one of the simplest ways to reduce your carbon footprint and, incidentally, exercise, which is so good for us. And not using planes to save emissions doesn’t mean staying bored at home.

If given the possibility, traveling by train or using a car to cover the stretches that can be done by road are good alternatives.

Focus on Sustainable Products & Purchasing

Being more responsible with what you buy can be of enormous help to the planet.

Luckily, today it is easier than ever to access organic products. Use your power as a consumer to support eco-conscious stores, buy second-hand items, and generally try to buy fewer things.

Some other examples include using Bamboo in furniture building, as its a natural wood that can be used instead of lumber and such. Examples of products that are sustainable and made of bamboo include outdoor furniture, bamboo Hardwood flooring, Teak or Bamboo Shower furniture, Planters and many more products!

Sometimes just wondering if we need something before throwing it into the shopping cart.

Reduce food waste

Did you know that almost a third of the food produced annually on the planet is lost? You can help reduce these numbers by wasting as little food as possible. Eat the leftovers, be creative, and add new ingredients to what was left of yesterday and start composting if you have room for it. Compost is an excellent fertilizer that can do without chemicals.

Turn off and unplug

While we are more connected today than ever, the simple act of turning off lights, computers, and displays when they are not going to be used anymore can save enormous amounts of energy in the long run. Do it and soon you will also notice the decrease in the account? Spend less and, by the way, help the planet.

Raise your voice

This year, you can add your voice to the growing movement for climate action if you don’t already. And that does not mean taking to the streets to protest: press your local representatives to take action in the face of the environmental crisis. Stay informed and talk to friends, colleagues, and neighbors about what we can do to help the planet. Don’t underestimate the power of conversation.

Vary your diet

Surely we could all make healthier decisions about our eating habits. For example, switching to a more plant-based diet is sure to help combat climate change. Raising animals to produce meat and dairy is one of the biggest causes of deforestation and a huge source of CO2 emissions. Eating more vegetables has less impact on the environment.

Go to nature

This new year, make a greater effort to leave home and explore the wonderful landscapes that our planet has to offer us. This may not directly impact the fight against climate change, but it is a way to appreciate the beauty that surrounds us and remind us that we must strive to protect it.

Recycle, recycle, recycle

There are reasons to repeat it repeatedly: the devastating consequences of plastic pollution are becoming increasingly noticeable, especially in our oceans. Recycling means producing fewer new products. And it can be done even with ingenuity: why not turn an old bottle into a lamp or a birdhouse?

Recycle your electronic devices

Every year a new phone or computer comes out, and most old accessories are thrown away rather than recycled. These devices create toxic waste by the chemicals they use to make them. However, many companies that sell these products, such as Apple, Best Buy, Sony, and Samsung, also have programs to recycle them.