This week's challenge comes from Jennifer.
Find one way to lower the environmental impact of your pet.
This week's task is a little challenging for me (no pun intended) because we currently do not have any pets. The closest we have gotten to pets is fish. Fish have a pretty low impact on the environment and do not usually require a lot of waste unless you are talking about a huge aquarium in your house. While other #CTWW folks are writing about bigger animals like cats and dogs, I will focus on fish. We cannot forget the little guys!
Fish require:
- Glass aquarium and gravel
- Distilled water
- Fish food
- Filtration system
- Hood and light
- pH testing kit
- Accessories (optional)
The main waste areas are the water and electricity to run the filtration and light, and potentially the type of fish food your fish require. Here are my recommendations on how to reduce the environment impact of fish:
- Reuse old aquarium water to water your indoor or outdoor plants, unless you added aquarium salt, medication, or chemicals, including pH adjusters or algae killers etc. The last two generally are not safe for aquariums anyway.
- Purchase the same type of fish or similar in terms of food and water needs - this will ensure that you limit the amount of different foods and accessories that you are buying.
- Avoid buying tropical fish because they require a heater and a thermometer - this will reduce the amount of electricity needed to keep the aquarium at a comfortable temperature.
- Use natural decor like stones and rocks that you can usually find for free instead of buying plastic ones.
- Limit the size of the aquarium and the number of fish. Bigger aquariums require more electricity.
