No one is asking for this. Potatoes, already perfectly packaged by nature, now individually wrapped in plastic. Why add plastic to something that doesn’t need it? We need less plastic packaging and more common sense.

400 years ago, beavers were hunted to extinction in Britain. It's cost the UK billions of dollars. They were massacred centuries ago for their pelt and a scent gland used in perfume, and Britain's rivers have been worse off ever since. Research from the Devon beaver trial found their dams reduced flood peaks by up to 60% and held an additional million litres of water during storm events. The UK currently spends £2.6 billion per year on hard flood defenses. A beaver reintroduction program in Scotland cost £195,000. The beavers work for free. Beaver wetlands also support 50% more species than wetlands without them. Otters, water voles, dragonflies, kingfishers, and breeding fish all depend on beaver wetlands. Only 14% of UK rivers are currently in good ecological condition. But these rivers can be fixed by being left alone with the right animals in them. Welcome back, beavers.

Most flowers take hours to refill their nectar after a bee visits. Borage refills in 2 to 5 minutes. It's essentially a pollinator buffet that never runs out. Bumblebees, honeybees, mason bees, and hoverflies find it, they stay, and they keep coming back all day. The flowers face downward to protect the nectar from rain. The sugar content is unusually high. It blooms from spring through first frost and self-seeds every year, so you plant it once and it returns on its own. The flowers are edible. They taste faintly of cucumber and look good in a salad or frozen in an ice cube. Scatter seeds somewhere sunny. Walk away. Come back in a few weeks and count how many things are on it.

If you have a bug zapper up, it's time to take it down. A University of Delaware study analyzed nearly 14,000 insects killed by bug zappers over a single summer. Mosquitoes accounted for 0.22% of them. Less than one quarter of one percent. The other 99.78%? Moths, beetles, midges, fireflies, and other beneficial insects doing exactly what your yard needs them to do. Here's why it's even worse than it sounds: mosquitoes don't find you by light. They find you by carbon dioxide, body heat, and skin chemistry. Your bug zapper is completely invisible to them. Meanwhile it's running all night massacring the pollination night shift. Moths are among the most important nocturnal pollinators alive, and they're flying straight into your zapper because they navigate by light. Bug zappers kill over 70 billion insects annually in the US. Harvard Medical School's Zika page specifically warns against them, noting they may actually increase mosquito populations by eliminating the beneficial insects that prey on mosquitoes. What actually works: eliminate standing water within 100 feet of where you spend time outside. That's your best bet. It's time to break up with the bug zapper.

Single-use coffee pods produce 56 billion pods of plastic waste per year globally. Stack them end to end, and they’d wrap around the Earth multiple times. A French press or drip maker produces zero. Switch once and never buy pods again. The coffee is better anyway.