Let’s be honest, most people like to consider themselves good people. Most people also feel badly they can’t do more to help others – whether they don’t think they have the time, the money, energy, or even that they just don’t know how.
Luckily, all is not lost!
One of the biggest things you can do to help, is to do something consistently. Sure, is dropping a one-time $1,000 donation helpful? Absolutely. Is it a sustainable way for you personally? Probably not.
Now, I’m not saying not to donate money if you have the means, I’m just saying if you can’t, there is still plenty of small things you can do to help make the world a better place.
And, the best part? All of them only require a little bit of your time, and basically changing 0 about your daily routine!
Pick Up Litter During Your Morning/Nightly Commute
The first thing on the list I want to talk about today, is actually something I’m a little ashamed it took me so long to clue into.
One day during my commute home a few years ago (pre-pandemic), I was sitting on the TTC like I usually did, and, I let my mind start to wander. The train went around a corner, and an empty coffee cup rolled out from under a seat and stopped a few feet in front of me. I stared at the cup, and found myself thinking about why that cup was there – was someone carrying a bunch of things and forgot to pick it up when they got off? Did they leave it there on purpose? And if so, why? Surely it wasn’t that hard to just throw it out when they got off the train – every station has multiple trash and recycle bins on basically every level!
I also started thinking about how sad it was that it seemed like no one else on the train had even noticed this little cup. Was everyone so jaded they didn’t even register it was a piece of garbage? Were they really all that self-involved? How hard would it be to take three extra seconds to pick it up and throw it out?
I was sitting there, somewhat in a state of annoyance, until my brain finally clued in: Hey, moron, you could pick up the cup, you know.
And then I felt embarrassed for immediately starting to judge everyone else for doing the exact same thing I had been doing every other time I’d seen litter on my commute. I was also more than a little embarrassed I hadn’t thought to pick it up sooner.
Long story short, I threw out that coffee cup when I got off at my stop, and I’ve started picking up pieces of litter I see while I’m on public transit.
It’s never impacted my commute so much it’s made me late for anything, and – despite the occasional weird look I get from strangers – there hasn’t really been any negatives.
I also make sure I wash my hands/don’t touch my face after I pick something up, since that’s the only real ‘danger’ I could think of with picking up trash. (It’s also the reason I don’t pick up things like used needles or band-aids)
If that’s something you’re worried about, you can always just not-do that, either. Picking up even just one thing is better than zero, after all.
Start small – a coffee cup on the train here, a napkin that’s stuck at the top of the escalator there – and then maybe you’ll see it’s not really that big of a deal, and it doesn’t impact your day as much as you might think.
Granted, this one is probably a little harder to do if you don’t take public transit, but let’s not sit here and pretend that parking lots are all always sparkling clean, either.
It really doesn’t take all that extra time, and again, as long as you don’t do something nuts like rub the garbage all over your face, it’s probably safer/not-as-unhygienic as you may think.
Switch Browsers (Ecosia)
How would you like to help plant trees without ever having to leave your house?
No, that’s not a clickbait-y line: it’s real!
Well, okay, it is a slightly clickbait-y line – but it’s still real!
All you’ve gotta do, is switch your search engine.
That’s right, I’m talking about Ecosia!
I’ve talked about Ecosia before, but in case you missed the post: Ecosia is a search engine (something you use to look stuff up on the internet, like Google or Bing) and by using it, you’re helping donate money so they can plant trees.
Back when I first started using it, their info page said it takes roughly 45 searches to plant 1 tree, and they had a little Tree Counter in the upper right-hand corner to help you keep track of your progress.
I believe it was the beginning of 2024 they said they did away with the individual Tree Counter, and were instead going to focus on the global help – which, I understand from their perspective – but it’s a little sad you can’t keep track on your own progress, anymore.
Before they did away with the counter though, I was keeping track of my searches, and from the time I had switched to using them (roughly mid-February 2020) to the last search batch I wrote down (mid-October 2023), I had 5,186 searches, which translated to roughly 115 trees planted.
115 trees.
In 3 years.
For doing nothing except for things I was already doing.
You literally cannot find a more passive way to help the planet! (Trust me, I’ve looked)
Free The Ocean Website
How would you like to help take some of the plastic out of the ocean?
No, you don’t need to buy a divers suit – just visit this website!
Free The Ocean is a website that removes 1 piece of plastic for each day you answer a trivia question – whether you get the answer right or wrong! All the trivia questions are ocean themed, and it really doesn’t take all that long to answer.
They allow you to make an account so you can track your personal progress, and they also have a store where you can buy zero waste products where part of the proceeds go toward removing plastic from the ocean.
It’s been a while since I looked at the About section of the website, but I believe it’s every $10 goes toward removing plastic. Which, I don’t think I have to tell you is definitely a worthwhile way to spend your money!
If your funds are tight though, don’t worry – answering the trivia and creating an account are 100% free!
Free Kibble Website
Are you an animal lover?
Then you’ll love this website!
Free Kibble is another daily trivia website that donates 10 pieces of kibble to animal shelters to help feed hungry dogs!
Similar to Free The Ocean, all you have to do, is answer a daily trivia question. And, again, whether you get the question right or wrong, they donate kibble!
They also have two other tabs on their website so you can help feed hungry cats and donate cat litter, too!
Free Rice Website
The last trivia website I want to share with you guys today is called Free Rice.
As you might be able to guess based on the name, these guys donate rice when you answer trivia questions. Their website says, every correct answer = 10 grains of rice for the UN World Food Hunger Programme.
You can choose to answer trivia questions in a variety of categories, such as: English, Art Culture, History, Math, Social Sciences and more! There’s plenty of opportunities for you to not only have fun, but also increases the chances you’ll get the answer right, so you’re able to donate!
If you’re really feeling stuck, you can always also just look up the right answer.
Also, one of my favourite things about this website, is that, unlike the ones above, you can do more than one question a day!
An example of the trivia – there’s a small bowl on the bottom that fills up with rice for every question you answer correctly
I like to play this website during my night time downtime as a way to relax, but there are plenty of small opportunities you could find to play throughout the day. On a lunch break, or perhaps on the train on your way to work?
As far as I know, there’s no limit to the amount of questions you’re able to answer daily, so the more you play, the more you help!
Which I think is great, because do you know how many grains of rice it takes to fill 1 bowl?
I didn’t either, but knowing rice is small, 10 grains is not very much. So, me being me, I looked it up. The internet had a range of averages – because of things like bowl size, type of rice, etc. – but the most consistent average I found said there was approximately 2,500-3,000 grains in one bowl.
Yes, you read that correctly: Three thousand grains of rice.
If we math it out, this means you’d need to answer 300 trivia questions correctly (3,000/10) before you donated one bowl.
That sounds like a lot, I know, but considering it takes less than a minute to answer one trivia question, you’ll probably hit that faster than you think.
For example, let’s say you played every night, for just 10 minutes. And – for the sake of easy math – let’s say you correctly answered 10 questions, that’s 100 grains donated right there. If you did that for just 1 week, that’d be 500 grains.
And if you kept it up for a month, that’d be 3,000 grains, which is 1 bowl!
That number doesn’t seem so big anymore, does it?
Just think of how much you’ll have accomplished by the end of a year, by basically changing nothing about your routine.
Helping others really doesn’t have to be some big inconvenience. Even if you just choose one of these things to start doing, you’ll see how quickly your ‘small’ help will have snowballed into something big!
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