While watching the Overpopulated documentary, I found it very interesting how overpopulation can lead to so many problems. You do not really think that there is so many overpopulated areas around the world until it is actually brought to our attention. However, it is a major issue all around the world today. With the world and our environment being in this position, there becomes less and less resources available. That being, natural resources. The more, people that there are, the more resources that will become used. The earth cannot naturally produce but so many resources on its own. One way in the documentary to show ways to prevent overpopulation was a woman in Bangladesh who went around door to door educating woman on the importance of the environment and giving them resources to access ways of things such as birth control methods. Women conceiving at such a young age and continuing to do so has become a big issue in today’s society and for the environment. Not only is it affecting our government but it is affecting our environment as well. When people are living with larger families and little income, they begin get aid from the government. When the government runs out of money that makes it harder for it to aid to things such as bettering the environment. Therefore, people themselves have to take money out of their own pockets to create groups and organizations to help and educate communities about the importance of the overuse of resources from overpopulation. This makes it harder for people to do because to get a legit organization started, it takes money, people, and educational factors to get it started. This documentary helped me think about the environment a lot differently and encourages me to make changes within my own life to be more sustainable.

I am far from an expert on environmental issues, and if I am being honest, before this class I didn’t really know much about what issues our Earth is actually facing.  After watching the documentary about overpopulation, it made me want to do some research on my own and find out more about what is going on.  After doing some research online, one problem that I saw our environment is losing is biodiversity.  This basically means that because of actions that are being performed by humans, species are going extinct.  This is happening mainly because of pollution and also because we are taking some of their important resources.  This really stuck out to me because I am always hearing about how different species are going extinct all over the world but I never really sit down and think about why they are actually going extinct.  I’ve never thought that environmental problems that are being caused by humans had that big of an impact on different species.

Another environmental hazard that we as humans are causing is tobacco waste.  According to the World’s Health Organization, “the manufacturing of tobacco products also produces an immense amount of waste. In 1995, the global tobacco industry produced an estimated 2.3 billion kilograms of manufacturing waste and 209 million kilograms of chemical waste.”  I have always been taught that smoking is bad, but never for the environmental reasons.  When I have been told before not to smoke, the reason behind it is because it is bad for my health, not bad for the environment.  After reading about tobacco waste and how bad it is for our environmental environment, it made me really think about other things we do that are hazardous to our environment without even thinking about it.

I’m not quite sure if this applies, but I was recently inspired to start making my own laundry detergent. It all started when I was taking an old newspaper to the recycling bin. I happened to see a story on the one of the pages about a mother who had replaced commercial laundry detergent with homemade. I ended reading the whole thing, and learning about how homemade laundry detergent is generally a cheap alternative to the commercial stuff, and it is also less taxing on the environment. I learned that normal laundry detergent is filled all kinds of harsh petrochemicals, carcinogens, and brighteners that can cling to clothes can cause all kinds of skin irritations. A bit more research revealed that Tide alone has over twenty-five separate ingredients including “fragrance,” which could be made of an assortment of harsh chemical compounds.

So, it was basically decided for me at that point. I remembered that I had some friends who had taken a workshop on making laundry detergent and asked for their help in my project. We started by collecting the necessary ingredients. First, we needed washing soda which is slightly different from baking soda. Next, we required borax. I should mention that if you are hesitant about using borax it is acceptable to just double up on the washing soda. Finally, we just needed a bar of natural soap. We started the process by grating the bar of soap into flakes. This actually took a little effort. Lastly, we mixed 250ml of borax and washing soda with our new soap flakes until perfectly combined. You just need to one or two tablespoons of the stuff per load of laundry. So far, it works decently well, and if you want to add your own fragrances, you can do so adding certain oils to your recipes. There are a lot of recipes out there if you want a more detailed process.