Tom van Oosterhout - Our Green Health

How to Reduce the Use of Plastic and Save Plants, Animals, and Our Health

16/03/2022 by Tom van Oosterhout

How to reduce the use of plastic is essentially our responsibility. Luckily there are numerous ways in which we can reduce the use of plastic, either at our job or at home.

As a matter of fact, it is quite easy. Imagine what our average day looks like. We get out of bed, freshen ourselves up, get dressed, eat, work, eat, try to relax, and go to bed again.

During such an average day there are 3 activities that are inseparably linked with the use of plastic: hygiene, consumption, and leisure. Every type of activity offers alternatives for the plastics we use.

Why Water Management is Important and How We Can Contribute

04/03/202204/03/2022 by Tom van Oosterhout

Water management is important. This is a conviction we all share. Water management is important because we need clear and clean, in other words, potable water.

At the same time, water management is complicated. It’s complicated because it’s a cyclic and very vulnerable process. For example, our water is purified twice, before and after we use it.

This is a costly and peculiar way of managing something which is so important to us. Fortunately, we can make a substantial personal effort to improve water management.

How to Convert to Organic Farming?

25/02/202225/02/2022 by Tom van Oosterhout

How to convert to organic farming is complicated. Not because of the actual agricultural transition. The final results will give most farmers much more pleasure and satisfaction. Modern conventional farming is doctored out for the farmers in the offices of banks, multinationals, and supermarkets. There is not much fun in farming like this.

No, the biggest problem of the conversion, and the consecutive organic farming experience, is the incessant bureaucracy. This should not be a problem when conventional farmers also had to go through all the same paperwork. Yet, they don’t have to.

Grow your own Fruits and Vegetables Sustainably and Tasty

14/02/2022 by Tom van Oosterhout

What motivates us to grow our own fruits and vegetables? The effort as such of course. The prospect of a harvest, no matter how modest. A green and at the same time colorful garden. Foods without poison. Improvement of the environment.

The fact that the exercise it takes to grow your own fruits and vegetables, in combination with the outdoor work, keeps you fit. Of course, the examples of others also motivate particularly well, because there is no motivation without inspiration.

How Air Pollution Affects our Health and Destroys Flora and Fauna

04/02/2022 by Tom van Oosterhout

Air pollution affects our health in a very direct way. The World Health Organization (WHO) states that air pollution kills “an estimated seven million people worldwide every year”.

The toxic agents causing this disaster are particulate matter, carbon dioxide, ozone, nitrogen dioxide, and sulfur dioxide. These toxic agents are released by household combustion devices, motor vehicles, industrial facilities, and forest fires.

At this very moment, we all breathe air that exceeds the guidelines of the WHO. Low and middle-income countries suffer the most.

Why we Desperately Need Sustainable Citizens’ Initiatives

28/01/2022 by Tom van Oosterhout

We desperately need more sustainable citizens’ initiatives, because we cannot trust politicians to take the effort. I explain my lack of trust in politicians by expressing my amazement about some peculiar political beliefs.

I do this to introduce a project that tries to change devastating agricultural practices for the better: GO Agrodiverso.

It’s an amazing project because it’s aimed at the conservation of as great a variety of national fruits and vegetables as possible. The participants want more biodiversity in agriculture.

Global Biodiversity Dictates the Quality of Our Life

24/01/2022 by Tom van Oosterhout

Global biodiversity dictates the quality of our life. You might compare it with our personal health. It’s one of our most important assets. The reason of course is that it makes us feel good. Yet, there is more. We perform better when we are healthy. Physically and mentally. We measure our well-being by our health. Our quality of life is measured by our health.

There are a lot of pines where we live. All the neighbours in our street spray poison against the pine processionary caterpillar. This spraying is totally nonsense and goes against every biodiversity logic. All the natural enemies of this caterpillar live here: the praying mantis, dozens of bats, cuckoos, and the great tit. Our neighbours consciously destroy the habitat of these animals and are a threat to the biodiversity in this area.