As a large community online, we have the opportunity to make a major positive impact with only a few small and simple choices each day. These acts add up across the world, having tremendous beneficial effect for our planet. With the gift of the internet we can connect with each other all over the globe, creating a vast community of people spread out that are making conscious, sustainable choices, together.

Millennial Online demonstrates that we DO have the numbers to make real change towards sustainable living and that we can continue to grow that impact using the power of the internet.

According to projectaware, 20 million plastic bottle caps and lids have been collected on beach cleanups in the last 30 years. With 100’s of millions of people going to restaurants to eat and drink daily, gathering at events all over, we could potentially pick up so many more than that each day keeping them from our oceans and sea friends. With the right attitude, we will accomplish a lot more in the next 30 years.

It doesn’t cost any money, either. Sure, you can buy stunning sugarcane Yuhme! 100% recyclable, reusable water bottles that gives back a minimum of 3 months worth of fresh water to villages in the Central Republic of Africa. But there is an opportunity for the LARGEST city cleanup happening EVERY day in cities across the world, right now!

We gather in high numbers, day in and day out. We see groups numbering in the thousands each day in shopping malls, parks, and sporting venues across the world.

70 MILLION people attend MLB games each season, spread across 30 cities in the United States and Canada. Nearly 4 million fans attended one of the 81 LA Dodgers games at Dodgers Stadium last year, where over 50 thousand fans can attend a single game (or concert). 100 THOUSAND people can watch Barcelona FC at Camp Nou in Spain, and around 100 MILLION people watch the Super Bowl each year.

Your local Walmart will likely see thousands of people today, walking past receipts, plastic and other litter blowing through the lot… We most certainly have the numbers so that a small effort from each of us would make a huge positive impact on our environment

Just south of 20 thousand people will together leave Madison Square Garden tonight in New York City after the Knicks game, or tomorrows sold out concert. Can you imagine how many garbage and recycling bags 20 THOUSAND single pieces of litter would fill in that short amount of time. A colossal impact, and that is just on our way to/from our nightly entertainment.

Stop next at our local coffee shop. 12 MILLION people go to Starbucks each day. With coffee shops and restaurants lining our city streets, it’s easy to see how we use 500 MILLION straws each day. That’s a crazy number. According to the United States National Park Services (The Be Straw Free Campaign), this is enough straws to fill 125 school buses each day. Over 46 THOUSAND school buses a year. Many of these straws end up in the landfill, or worse our oceans, lakes, and forests. Starbucks has made a decision on their own to stop using plastic straws by 2020.

McDonalds, who serves 68 MILLION customers each day, said it’s banning straws in some locations. These bans on straws are a great start and will inspire others to move forward making more sustainable choices, but we have the opportunity to make even more progress today.

Sustainable choices need to be made by the corporations and governments, but it starts with us as individuals. When we spend our precious time and resources towards supporting sustainable brands, we help create competition to the unsustainable companies who must then rethink their practices if they want our business, and if a business wants to be sustained, it will need long term, happy customers. It will need us. We can demand the change we want to see.

The US alone consumes almost enough water bottles to line them up and wrap the earth 200 MILLION times? That’s 50 BILLION plastic bottles a year… INSANITY!

70 MILLION students attend classes in the United States alone. That’s a lot of children and young adults going outside each day, to and from school. An entire generation can be inspired to make sustainable choices and to take care of our environment; following our example.

It will take an attitude change to protect the environment for the benefit of all living things on earth. That’s something we can do!

Join the Millennial Online Community making small eco-friendly decisions today, and imagine what we can do tomorrow!