World Earth Day 2021
It’s Earth Day! The theme for this year is ‘Restore our planet’, reflecting the need to take collective responsibility for our actions and the impact they have on our planet. We all, as a community and individuals have a role to play in this.
Sex Workers are particularly vulnerable to inequalities in society and it would be remise to ignore the impact of climate change in perpetuating such inequalities.
As a Sex Worker led organisation, Umbrella Lane is committed to sustainable and environmentally friendly practices and believes Sex Workers and Sex Work activism have an important role to play in combatting climate change. Historically, Sex Workers have been at the forefront of rights movements across the world from Womens’ Rights to LGBT Rights, and the strength of the Sex Worker community has a duty to ourselves, and society to actively stand up for environment.
It is no secret that climate change disproportionately affects those on the margins of society and those already vulnerable, and significant work needs to be done to safeguard those communities from the harmful effects of the current ecological crisis.
Umbrella Lane is proud to prioritize environmental responsibility in all our actions and is proud to have environmentally friendly policies in place including a paperless policy and a desire to achieve carbon neutrality.
But there are a lot of ways we, as Sex Workers, can make more of a difference!
It’s no surprise that Sex Work can be practiced unsustainably as cleaning up means a lot of paper waste and a lot of washing but we can minimise the impact by:
-Use environmentally friendly tissue paper. They generally don't cost more than store branded tissues but have the advantage of not harming the environment to produce, they also last longer too! If you’re stuck for ideas try checking out ‘Who gives a crap’ for their range of environmentally friendly products.
-Wash using an environmentally friendly detergent; it’s easy to forget that each time we do a load of laundry we are putting chemicals into the environment. Some brands are working to minimise this by adding less and different chemicals, whilst still cleaning the clothes and towels. If you are stuck for ideas try ‘Smol’ for a cost effective and convenient eco-friendly option.
-Wash using the lowest temperature possible as the amount of energy required is significantly reduced. A good temperature to wash towels is 40 degrees, this has the benefit of saving money as well!
-Rather than getting a new phone, try getting a used one! They save the environment by avoiding the damaging effects of the production process involved in making phones. Do you need a phone? Check out The Dialtone Project which provides free, used phones to Sex Workers in need
-Make your own cleaning products! It sounds hard but trust me it's not, and it's great for the environment (and your pocket book!). Check out ‘recipes’ here on this page: https://thegreenparent.co.uk/articles/read/make-your-own-cleaning-products
Do you have any more tips you would like to share with Sex Workers? Tweet @umbrellalane or send us a pm and we’ll share it on twitter page!
We at Umbrella Lane wish you a happy and sustainable Earth Day and hope that it is an opportunity to reflect on how we can do better for the only planet we’ve got, as Sex Workers individually and as a community!