Chewing gum: We munch on it to freshen our breath, reduce boredom, or weaken cravings. Whether you’re a gum-snapper, a bubble-blower, or a more reserved gum-chewer, you’re probably chewing on a material that’s polluting our landscapes and waterways. That’s right, most chewing gum contains plastic.

People have been chewing on stuff for thousands of years. History.com tells us that people from northern Europe munched on birch bark tar. The Mayans chewed on chicle, a material extracted from the sapodilla tree. Native Americans — and later, European settlers — chewed on spruce tree resin. These were all naturally chewy things with organic origins.

In the U.S., chicle-based chewing gum was popularized in the late 1800s but by the 1940s, chicle was largely replaced by synthetics. Today, most of the gum on the market gets its elasticity and chewy-ness from plastics. Sometimes the plastic base is polyethylene, the plastic used to make most plastic bags. Another plastic used in gum is polyisobutylene, which is used to make inner tubes. The “ick” factor aside, if you’re trying to eliminate single-use plastics from your life, take a look at chewing gum.

This article contains affiliate links. If you purchase an item through one of these links, we receive a small commission that helps fund our Recycling Directory.

Not All Gum Contains Plastic

Fortunately, there are plastic-free alternatives, although you might not find them in your local supermarket yet. Some of these brands are rather obscure and you’ll have to place an order directly from their websites. Others you might find locally and several brands are available on Amazon.

Most plastic-free gum brands state that their gum base contains chicle — the chewy stuff that Mayans chewed on years ago. In addition, many of the plastic-free brands we found sweeten the gum with xylitol, a natural sweetener that fights cavities, derived from the bark of birch and beech trees. These brands also may state that their gum is biodegradable, kosher, plant-based, GMO-free, vegan, or even palm-oil-free. A lot of the ingredients are similar among these natural chewing gum brands, but they all claim to be free of plastic.

Plastic-free Gum Options

Chicza is a company with one focus: natural, plastic-free chewing gum. What sets the brand apart is that all its ingredients are organic and the gum base is 100% chicle, sustainably harvested from rainforests. It claims that the other natural gum brands do not use only chicle in their gum base. It’s available in mint, cinnamon, and mixed berry flavors. BUY Chicza gum on Amazon

Woman-founded Simply makes a variety of natural candies as well as plastic-free gum made with a chicle gum base. Made in the U.S.A., Simply gum is sweetened with organic sugar cane and comes in unique flavors including maple, coffee, fennel, pumpkin spice, and one flavor that’s a combination of grapefruit, prickly pear, cayenne, and sea salt. BUY Simply gum on Amazon

Glee Gum is made with sustainably harvested rainforest chicle and packaged in recyclable materials. Non-GMO cane sugar and brown rice syrup sweeten classic Glee Gum; the sugar-free version is sweetened with xylitol. Glee is more widely distributed throughout the U.S. than some plastic-free gum brands, so you might find it in a local grocery store. BUY Glee Gum on Amazon

The Humble Co. is a Swedish-based company founded by dentists working against plastic waste and helping lower-income communities with dental health. In addition to dental-care products such as toothpaste and floss, it sells xylitol-sweetened gum in mint, tropical fruit, and berry flavors. The ingredients don’t list the source of its “natural gum base,” but the website says it “comes from trees.” BUY The Humble Co. gum on Amazon

The first natural gum company in the U.K., Chewsy gum is yet another chicle-based, plastic-free chewing gum. The gum is sugar-free, naturally sweetened with xylitol, and comes in peppermint, cinnamon, spearmint, and lemon flavors. BUY Chewsy on Amazon

More Plastic-free Gum Brands

• Milliways is a London-based company that makes chicle-based gum in flavors such as mint, bubblemint, and watermelon. Its packaging is also plastic-free.
• The woman-owned brand Oh My Gum! uses chicle in the gum base and also uses plastic-free recyclable cardboard in its packaging. It’s available in the U.K. as well as France, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, and Austria.
• Nuud is based in the U.K. and, like Oh My Gum, does not use any plastic in its packaging. Like the other brands, its “natural gum base” includes chicle.
• Based in Copenhagen, True Gum chicle-based gum comes in interesting flavors like Raspberry & Vanilla, Ginger & Tumeric, and Liquorice & Eucalyptus.

Let Companies Hear Your Voice

These are just a few of the plastic-free gum brands out there. As more consumers request plastic-free gum, manufacturers will respond with more options. Our purchasing habits are a great way to influence businesses, so buy gum that aligns with your values. If there’s a gum brand you’ve stopped buying because it doesn’t offer a plastic-free option, let the company know why you’ve stopped buying its product.

Plastic pollution is a worldwide crisis. As more of us work towards eliminating plastic from our lives, avoiding plastic chewing gum is an easy change to make. Who wants to chew on plastic anyway?

Originally published on June 30, 2022, this article was updated in February 2023.

The need for green spaces in urban areas increases as climate change continues to warm our planet and extreme weather events become more frequent.

Human-made structures like dark asphalt roadways, cement sidewalks, and brick buildings absorb heat, contributing to the heat island effect. Trees and plants provide much-needed shade and cool the air through a process called evapotranspiration, which helps alleviate the heat island effect. During heat waves, urban vegetation plays a key role in making our cities habitable.

As our warming climate causes sea level rise, more frequent hurricanes, and heavier rainfall, the paved urban environment is at higher risk of flooding. Trees and other plants help manage runoff and protect against erosion.

Learn more about the benefits that green spaces provide and let your city officials know why your city needs more green spaces.

Print or share We Earthling posters to inspire others with your stories.

 

For most of human history, natural burial was the only option. Then, in the 20th century, toxin-laden embalming practices and air-polluting cremation methods became mainstream. Today, no matter how sustainably you have lived your life, modern funeral practices ensure that you make one last giant carbon footprint when you die. In many places, regulations require the use of toxic, persistent chemicals for embalming and concrete vaults for burial. But more and more individuals are looking for ways to die as sustainably as they have lived. And more states are legalizing ecological funeral practices. Green burial options are returning to the mainstream.

Modern Funeral Practices

Conventional modern burial practices are anything but sustainable. They use toxic, persistent chemicals for embalming. About 827,000 gallons of embalming fluid containing formaldehyde leak into soil and groundwater annually. Caskets use the wood from four million square acres of forest each year. Burial vaults and monuments use more than 1.5 million tons of concrete; 104,000 tons of steel; and 2,700 tons of copper and bronze. All told, burials result in 178 tons of carbon dioxide emissions yearly. The Greenest State to Die In report estimates that the average burial generates 250 pounds of greenhouse gas emissions. The same study found that cremation generates more than 530 pounds of greenhouse gas emissions, due to the nonrenewable natural gas that powers crematoria.

The environmental impact of dying varies by state, primarily based on whether burial or cremation is the more popular funeral choice. However, the availability of more sustainable alternative options can make a difference in how green your death can be. Until recently, most states’ death care laws limited one’s sustainable choices mostly to environmentally friendly uses for cremation ashes, like tree cremains urns and coral reef restoration. But natural burial is on the rise. According to the National Funeral Directors Association, interest in green burial options is up 5% since 2021, with 60% of Americans now open to green burial.

Green Burial

Natural burial, which is also called green burial, refers to a less toxic burial process. In a standard burial, the body is embalmed and put into a metal or lacquered wood casket that is then placed in a concrete burial vault. In a natural burial, the body receives no chemical treatment. It is wrapped in a cotton shroud or placed in a biodegradable casket made of wicker or wood, which is buried directly in the ground where it can naturally decompose.

Some people choose unobtrusive monuments made from native stone that lie flat with the ground. Many natural cemeteries eliminate headstones entirely. Vegetation can completely cover the grave sites and the entire property remains indistinguishable from a natural area. (Individual burial sites are recorded using GPS coordinates so that they can be found.) The Greenest State study estimates natural burial to be climate positive, sequestering about 25 pounds of carbon.

Green Cemeteries

Green burial is legal in every state, however local cemetery regulations may limit the availability of places to perform natural burials. The New Hampshire Funeral Resources & Education website maintains a list of cemeteries that can accommodate natural burials. Cemeteries can take several approaches to natural burial. Conservation burial grounds go beyond natural burial and commit to using burial fees for land acquisition as part of a larger ecological preservation and restoration project. Natural burial grounds will preserve a natural or naturalistic landscape with native vegetation and will avoid pesticides and fertilizers. Hybrid cemeteries are regular cemeteries that have obtained legal authorization to perform natural burials in a special area or throughout the grounds but continue to offer standard burials with vaults as well.

 

Green Funerals

The Green Burial Council certifies funeral homes that meet seven main standards for green burial services. They maintain a list of certified funeral homes on their website. However, certification is not required to offer green burials. Many funeral homes that are not on the list can provide sustainable funeral services and green burials.

Funeral services can be made more sustainable by dressing the deceased in biodegradable clothing instead of synthetic fabrics; using recycled paper products; and offering locally grown, organic flowers and food. Families can ask guests to carpool and may choose to hold the service in a natural setting instead of a funeral home. Once common, few people know that home funerals are still legal. Holding a home funeral allows families to care for the deceased and all aspects of the service and burial. In fact, families who live on large properties in rural areas may be able to perform their own natural burial at home. Most states allow burial on private property. Some states require designation of a piece of land as a family cemetery, and local zoning laws preclude burial in many areas.

Other Options

Some of the most environmentally friendly death care services don’t even involve burial. Aquamation is a heated chemical reaction that leaves behind only bone fragments and a sterile liquid made up of salts, sugars, amino acids, and peptides in water. There are no residual tissues or DNA, so this liquid can be safely discharged as wastewater. Aquamation only generates about 53 pounds of greenhouse gases. Families can claim the bone fragments just as they can for cremains. The Cremation Association of North America maintains a map of regulatory changes that tracks the legalization of aquamation.

Composting, like natural burial, has the potential to be climate positive. However, the first state to legalize it only did so in 2019, so data is limited. Composting is catching on quickly, though, with new states passing laws allowing the practice each year. Human remains are composted individually in honeycomb-like cells (called “cradles” or “vessels”). These cells control the temperature and oxygen level inside. The slowly rotate a clean, efficient mixture of organic materials (including straw and wood chips). The final result is indistinguishable from garden topsoil. Families can choose to collect the soil for their own use, but most choose to donate it. From funeral to garden, the entire process takes about six weeks.

With the return of natural burials and with newer options like aquamation and composting, environmentalists finally have end-of-life choices that pay more than lip service to the idea of becoming one with nature.

Today’s carbon emitted into the atmosphere adds to the future cost of living through the climate crisis, a concept referred to as the social cost of carbon. To help clarify this abstract idea, we have an idea that lets you help future generations cover the social cost of carbon for the gasoline you use.

At some point, governments or private markets are expected to put a price on carbon, and the future impact of a ton of carbon emitted today will be a key factor in that price. From the cost of carbon removal and climate-related weather or health costs to lost food production and other impacts that raise the cost of living, today’s CO2 emissions come at a high cost for our descendants.

The Biden Administration recently announced new guidance that could raise the future cost of a ton of carbon from $51, the price set in 2021, to $190. This non-binding price is important in recognizing the environmental debt we’re leaving our children, their children, and future generations. The Trump Administration previously set the social cost of 1 ton of carbon at only $8. Several studies, including a September 2022 report in Nature that set the price at $185/ton, have suggested that the actual cost is much higher. On entering the White House, the Biden team set the price at $51.

Now, according to National Public Radio, the Environmental Protection Agency is considering changing its estimate to $190 a ton. Based on the new $190 per-ton price, in 2021 the world’s living generations who emitted 31.5 billion metric tons (or 35.2 billion imperial tons) borrowed $6.68 trillion dollars from future generations, who will have to cover those costs out of their own pockets. And that’s just one year’s emissions. Over the course of the past decade, we’ve front-loaded future costs of more $70 trillion into the cost of living in 2050.

One Simple Idea: Pay the Debt You’re Leaving Your Kids

We don’t have to be like Popeye’s perpetual financial foil, Wimpy, and wait for the EPA’s decision before acting to finance our descendants’ solution. We can act today.

We suggest that the social cost of a ton of carbon can be the basis for a simple investment strategy that can pay out today’s social cost of carbon to your descendants. This idea addresses a family’s future risk if you keep the money in a directed trust fund, which could specify how the funds can be used. If you’d like to set aside money for societal costs in general, making a charitable gift to a nonprofit that administers these funds for wider social impact, the idea can be extended to all of society.

We can plan ahead by using an easy-to-access U.S. Treasury bond that protects the principal from inflation, the I bond, to set aside money for up to 30 years, when, if we manage to end carbon emissions, the worst impacts of climate change are likely to strike. If you put $1 in today, your beneficiaries will receive $1 plus the accrued interest between five and 30 years in the future, effectively hedging the principal investment — the cash you put in — against inflation.

NerdWallet explains that I bond interest rates are reset by the Department of the Treasury every six months to pay out at a rate that ensures the cash investment is preserved despite rising prices. At this writing, I bonds pay 6.89% (click the percentage to see the current rate). There will be a federal tax due on the interest received over the years if the money is used for anything other than education expenses, which are tax free.

Editor’s note: Earth911 is not an investment advisory and has no economic interest in the recommended strategy. Discuss this idea with your financial advisor before making any decisions.

Think Before You Gas Up

How can we help defray the huge future costs created by the CO2 we emit today? The simplest way to to stop burning fossil fuels and make our economy efficient. But that is a long process that requires worldwide participation.

Instead, think about how you might set aside some funding to help your descendants deal with the cost of climate change. Each time you fill up your gas tank, if you still have an internal combustion vehicle, track the number of gallons. Then, every six months, you can do some simple math to decide how much to invest for your children.

How much should you set aside? There is a reliable formula to use because a gallon of gas always emits the same amount, 19.37 pounds, of carbon dioxide when burned. In other words, a gallon of gas produces 0.009685 tons of CO2, and that can be converted into a dollar value per gallon which, at $190 per ton, is $1.84 per gallon. At the current established social cost of CO2, $51/ton, you’d need to put aside $0.50 per gallon burned. Maybe you’d like to pick a higher or lower social cost per ton of carbon. If so, here’s a quick sample of per-gallon investments you’d need to make:

Two Ways To Make a Quick Social Cost of Your Driving Calculation

Any solution needs to be easy, and we found two ways to make quick work of calculating the social cost of your driving.

You can keep your receipts and add up how many gallons of gas you purchased every six months. To find your future cost of the emissions, multiply the number of gallons by $1.84 to get the total to put into a bond fund — for instance, 65 gallons of gas burned produces 1,259.05 pounds of CO2, which at $190/ton ($1.84/gallon), will cost future generations $119.60.

Or, don’t bother to save receipts and instead record your mileage every six months, subtracting the previous total from the latest mileage reported by your odometer. For example, if you odometer reads 21,300 miles on January 1 and 26,500 on July 1, it’s easy to calculate that you drove 5,200 miles. Divide your miles driven by the EPA’s reported miles per gallon for your vehicle: 5,200 miles driven divided by 22 mpg = 236 gallons of gas. Now, multiply the gallons purchased by $1.84, the per-gallon cost at $190 per ton of CO2 emissions, to find the amount to invest in I bonds: $434.24.

Here’s the formula to convert your gas usage from gallons to the social cost you would need to cover for future generations:

         GALLONS OF GASOLINE PURCHASED * SOCIAL COST PER GALLON = $ to invest in I bonds

The same principle can be applied to any carbon-emitting activity, for example heating your home with natural gas or fossil fuel burned to generate the electricity you use. See our article Carbon Calculating: Estimating Your Home Energy Impact for more information about the emissions factors of other fuels.

The point of this suggestion is not that you must pay this amount to future generations — that’s a decision each of us needs to make for ourselves. We provide this idea as a basis for understanding the impact of driving an internal combustion vehicle on future generations. If we cannot change, let’s consider how to help our children and their children adapt.

Sea level rise due to melting glaciers on Greenland and in the Arctic and Antarctic could force the relocation of 267 million people and entire cities located less than 2 meters — 6.5 feet — from today’s waterline by 2100. Oceanographer John Englander has raised the alarm about sea level rise in his books, High Tide on Main Street and Moving to Higher Ground. John runs the Rising Seas Institute and leads regular visits to Greenland to spur awareness of the accelerating loss of its glaciers. We talked with him in 2021, when Moving to Higher Ground was released, and he returns to the show to share an update on the pace of warming, the Thwaites Glacier and Ice Shelf in Antarctica, Greenland’s rapid loss of ice, and the preparations necessary for adaptation to a world of constantly rising seas.

NASA warns that continuing warming could raise sea levels by 5 meters (more than 16 feet) by 2300. The early damage will be felt across more than twice the expected coastal land than previously expected, according to a January 2023 Dutch research study published in the journal Earth’s Future, because previous satellite analysis misestimated the altitude of heavily forested land. The potential cost of protecting seaside cities and raising port facilities will run into the trillions of dollars. Perhaps that spending can be an opportunity to rethink our infrastructure comprehensively, but in the midst of a crisis people are not prone to be very forward-looking.

John Englander’s books are available online. Look for “Moving to Higher Ground: Rising Seal Level and the Path Forward” at Amazon and Powell’s Books and “High Tide on Main Street: Rising Sea Level and the Coming Coastal Crisis” (Amazon; Powell’s Books). You can learn more about John and his work at johnenglander.net.

Earth911 is honoring the 52 years of Earth Day with 52 Actions for the Earth. Each week through Earth Day 2023, we will share an action you can take to invest in the Earth and make your own life more sustainable. The environmental impact of the global textile and fashion industry is so big that EarthDay.org has made sustainable fashion one of its major campaigns. This week, you can use social media to take action for the Earth by becoming a fashion influencer.

Action: Become a Sustainable Fashion Influencer

Fashion

We’re so used to $10 T-shirts, seasonal trends, and shops that rotate merchandise every two weeks, few of us can imagine a world without fast fashion. The average person today buys 60% more clothing than they did 15 years ago. But they only keep their clothes for half as long. The average garment may be worn as few as 10 times before disposal.

But every aspect of making, selling, and replacing all that disposable clothing has a big environmental impact. The fashion industry is responsible for nearly 10% of total greenhouse gas emissions. Every year, 40 million tons of textiles are disposed – many of them never worn. It takes nearly 3,000 liters of water to make one cotton T-shirt and 3,781 liters of water to make a pair of jeans. Yet cotton, especially organic cotton, is a better fabric choice than synthetics. More than half of our clothes are made of oil-derived synthetic fibers that contribute to 35% of all ocean microplastic pollution. After technology manufacturing, the garment industry is the next leading cause of modern slavery and child labor.

My Planet My Closet

Quitting fast fashion for good and investing in sustainable fashion isn’t easy, especially when social media is overflowing with haul videos and #ootd (outfit of the day) images that encourage a throwaway approach to dressing. You can take inspiration from EarthDay.org’s Fashion for the Earth Ambassadors and shift your own influences by following more sustainable fashion influencers in 2023. But it’s even better to become an influencer for good yourself.

As part of EarthDay.org’s sustainable fashion campaign, they are renewing My Planet My Closet, a showcase for the efforts of regular people to move past fast fashion and develop a more sustainable wardrobe. To participate, make a short MP4 video showing off your sustainable closet, and share it with EarthDay.org. They might use it on Twitter, other social media channels, their web page, or all of the above.

You can follow EarthDay.org’s guidelines and join their campaign or just do your own thing. On the social media platform of your choice, create a video, reel, image, or text post that relates to sustainable fashion. Demonstrate how you reduce the impact of your wardrobe, show off your creative remixes of your capsule wardrobe, or share facts about the environmental impact of the fashion industry. If you know how to mend or recently hosted a clothing swap, make a how-to video or blog about the experience. Read some of Earth911’s articles on making fashion sustainable if you need inspiration, and don’t forget to tag @Earth911!

I don’t think I was bad at making donations to environmental charities, but it did feel like something was lacking. I built PennyLoafer to help fill this gap.

Despite our best intentions, a lot of things get in the way of our charitable giving. Maybe we don’t know where to start, or we don’t have time to do the research. We’re busy with school, jobs, kids — with life. We may be skeptical that our giving will truly make a difference, especially on big issues like climate change and the mental health crisis. This was certainly the case for me.

In the summer of 2020, amidst a global pandemic and racial justice movement, I took stock of my giving habits. They seemed disjointed and often reactive. I would donate when crises happened, or requests came my way: a friend’s charity run; a drive for my cousin’s classroom supplies; or supporting a local food pantry during the pandemic. To be sure, it always felt good in the moment, but looking at my donations as a whole, they felt impulsive and it was hard to deduce what I actually valued.

If you can relate to this, know that it’s human. In fact, donors rarely give as much as they intend to and often have trouble explaining a consistent approach to the charities they choose. One study from the Center for Advanced Hindsight found that, on average, people want to give 2.5 times more than they actually do. This difference between intention and action got me curious.

I considered what it would mean to have a giving strategy: What did I care about most? And how could I do more about it strategically and on an ongoing basis?

From that came the idea for PennyLoafer, a platform that makes charitable giving simple and more strategic. We do this by creating ongoing giving strategies around select causes like climate change, with the goal of getting more people donating regularly to causes they care about and learning along the way.

Impact Made Easy – Eliminating Barriers to Charitable Giving

PennyLoafer is designed to address several common barriers to giving:

1. Choice overload. There are more than a million nonprofits in the U.S. alone. Decision paralysis is a common pitfall. PennyLoafer helps you out by researching and vetting a diverse collection of nonprofits so you can simply start giving based on your priorities, and have one less aspect of your life overwhelmed by choices.
2. Time. Responsible giving requires time to research issues and charities. People are busy. PennyLoafer builds giving into your life, taking care of logistics and keeping you informed along the way.
3. Feeling overwhelmed by issues. We’ve all been there: What can one person do to make a difference, especially for complex issues like the climate crisis? With PennyLoafer, our members join other like-minded donors in a giving strategy. Ten dollars a month might not seem like a lot but it quickly adds up when we combine donations.
4. Unclear impact. You’re not giving into a black hole with PennyLoafer. We keep you updated on the impact of your giving and engaged in the cause via our monthly newsletter.

Keeping Donors Informed About Issues

Perhaps the most important aspect of PennyLoafer is the monthly newsletter. I didn’t want this to be another fund that people can donate to and never really hear anything again. It’s important to me that people feel impactful with their giving, learn about different nonprofits and the various strategies employed to address issues like climate change.

Donors receive consistent feedback every month. The newsletter highlights the selected nonprofit, including its leadership, approach, and why it was chosen. It also shares relevant news and information about the cause. For instance, our climate change newsletter might cover a piece of climate legislation moving through Washington or interesting facts about renewable energy developments.

Since our launch in fall 2021, PennyLoafer donors have sent thousands of dollars to charities fighting climate change across the country. In the process, they’ve learned about a variety of organizations and different ways to address the issue. From national NGOs, such as Carbon180, which works on federal policies that increase funding for carbon removal, to smaller, grassroots nonprofits like Native Renewables, which is bringing solar power to the Navajo Nation.

The Social Venture Model

We made an intentional effort to be accessible and affordable. PennyLoafer does not take a share of donations or charge platform fees. We partner with a 501(c)(3) charity, Charityvest, so that all donations through the platform are tax deductible.

Donors can start by giving as little as $5 a month, and change their regular donation or cancel at any time. Donors also have the option to leave a tip to help PennyLoafer cover our operating expenses. At its core, PennyLoafer is built to get more individual donors meaningfully connected to causes they care about, learning and feeling the difference they make — no matter the amount they can give.

To learn more or start giving regularly to causes that address climate change and other issues, check out pennyloafer.org.

This article was originally published on March 1, 2022.

About the Author

Andi Thieman is the founder of PennyLoafer. Her background is in nonprofit consulting and human services. Her career has focused on strategic planning, capacity-building, grant writing, and best practice research for nonprofits and public agencies. She is a Pittsburgh native, currently living in San Juan, Puerto Rico.