The first thing I always see people say is plant a garden/trees or recycle, but I don’t have land, and I live in a red state that seems to hate recycling. The closest place to take plastic last I checked was over an hour away by car.
I know anything I do would have a negligible effect, but I’m sick of not doing anything.
Also is there anything I can do about the heat without running the AC? I try to leave the windows open, but they’re all on one side and don’t seem to allow for much airflow that way.
The idiom is “reduce, reuse, recycle” in that order for a reason. Even if plastic recycling is difficult in the US, reducing and reusing are doable by just about anyone. This can be using less one-time plastics, eating less meat (make sure nutritionally balanced), drive less, reuse those shipping boxes for other stuff such as for paper waste, buying from local farmers (if you can afford it)… something along those lines
For home, living in an apartment is actually one of the best things one can do for the climate, since living in an apartment in a city is much, much more energy efficient than living in a suburb… not to mention cutting down on car-related costs. For ppl living in a home, methinks AC is more of a boogeyman… having good home insulation is a much better solution (as a well-insulated home uses less energy!), and the best part is that it is bipartisan so red states would happily do it too. If renovation is not possible, stuff like blackout curtains, window blinds, … are cheap insulation options
IMO these are still negligible effects on an individual level, but these are not nothing, and if everyone does these the world would be a much better place. For more meaningful actions, probably organizing