Eco Friendly Habitats and Government Policies

Have you ever held accountable, blamed or commended the government for something? Chances are that you have, once, twice or times without number. 

The government plays a massive role in the affairs of every nation. The decisions made and laws passed affects the way a nation and her people turn out or carry on or both.

In the past episodes, we have talked about Eco heroes in different spheres and if you’ve been following ( we hope you have), you’d have noticed that there’s a face to every name that has been mentioned; so much so that you can point to a person or brand if a name was mentioned. Well, when it comes to the government, a face or name may or may not come to mind and for an entity that so much expectation is placed on, that is as vague as it gets.

Notwithstanding, there are governments we can call Eco heroes because for the longest, they have enacted laws and continually upheld principles and policies that have protected the environment, other life forms and made the world a better place. 

Environmental laws are not a new thing that governments recently took on. In fact, from as early as the 14th century, laws have been passed by different governments to protect humans from environmental pollution. However, these laws have moved from being occasional policies to major enforcements that protect humans and non-humans.

Let’s examine a few

Denmark

If you want to take in fresh air as it is, the place to go is Denmark. Copenhagen, the capital is known as the most livable city, and the people are said to be the happiest. They must be breathing fresh air!

Well, we can’t look too far from the government which for the longest has continuously implemented, reviewed and amended environmental laws to become as Eco- friendly as can be. 

If a gavel was used to punctuate the rulings as they were proclaimed or they were just written as part of an existing constitution or the laws were made some other way, we can’t tell. However, these policies have for Air pollution solutions given birth to a country with a cycling culture, more access to public transportation to reduce the use of cars, and the use of electric vehicles.

Denmark has become one of the cleanest countries in the world by using renewable energy sources like wind turbines to address climate change. The country has the cleanest water both for drinking and swimming and is slowly switching to a zero-cost economy, as so many recycling centres have been established throughout the country to encourage reuse and repair instead of waste.

Need we say more!

Denmark ranks as one of the most environmentally friendly countries in the world and the people are sure happy 😃 

United Kingdom

Based on the Environmental Performance Index; a method of quantifying the environmental performance of a country’s policies, the UK has a perfect score of 100 for sanitation, drinking water and management of solid household fuels (https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/most-environmentally-friendly-countries).

In October 2020, Single-use plastic was banned in the UK using a series of regulations that included the restriction of plastic straws, drink stirrers, cotton bud sales to end-users and businesses. 

This move was part of a 25-year plan to rid the environment of the effects of the 4.93 million tonnes of plastic waste, a lot of which are plastic straws that do not make it to recycling and are a major part of the environmental challenges the UK faces, as they take up to 200 years to decompose. This is not the end of the bans as there are upcoming measures already put in place to combat pollution, protect the environment, preserve our existence as well as other life forms.

Many other countries like Japan, Switzerland, Luxembourg, France, Austria are a part of this movement and have made remarkable progress to make our earth livable.

If you’ve never commended the efforts of the government, here’s a massive reason to. And while the government may be “faceless”, keep in mind that you might be a part of it; maybe the Janitor that keeps the environment clean and orderly. Everyone is somehow involved.