I think that by now we are all aware of the problems that our Earth is facing with global warming and pollution. I’ve always been someone that likes to think that I was decently Eco-friendly since I always recycle. However, after browsing a few blog posts and educating myself more on the topic and how to become more Eco-friendly and live a life with less waste, I got a wake-up call that I was not nearly doing enough and I need to step up my game.
After seeing how much trash and waste just my partner and I ( just two people) produce each week, I couldn’t imagine what families or even just people who don’t care about recycling, waste. This got me curious about easy ways that we, everyday people, can start to become more Eco-friendly. My partner and I are not minimalists or zero-waste individuals. Maybe one day we will be more extreme and conscious with our waste and lifestyle, but right now, we’re trying to live a comfortable life, but not be as wasteful and more conscious about our waste. I think that this idea is something that a lot of people can relate to, which is why I put together this list.
This list may not seem ground-breaking or anything crazy, but all these things add up. If you want to make a difference and do your part, I highly suggest you take a look at the list below and adopt these ideas into your life as well.
Reduce. Reuse. Recycle.
One of the most important ideas when it comes to being more Eco-friendly or more conscious about your waste, is the idea to reduce, then reuse, and then lastly recycle and in that order specifically. Below I will show you how to reduce your waste in certain areas of your life and in tips down below, I show you how you can reuse the items that you had before but we’re just throwing away previously.
Reusable Shopping Bags
If you’re not using reusable shopping bags by now, what are you doing? A lot of stores, especially in Australia, are now charging you for bags and no longer provide free plastic bags. This initiative upset a lot of people, but it’s definitely for the best. Reusable bags only cost a couple of dollars maximum and you can also get really cute, functional bags as well. We love using insulated shopping bags for our cold produce and just using anything from store-bought reusable bags or shopping bags that I received in the past for just regular non-cold items.
If you feel like you’re going to forget your reusable shopping bags, always keeping them in your car or better yet, keep a fold up reusable bag in your purse will ensure you always have a reusable bag readily available.
Reusable Water Bottle
I know I’m not the most Eco-friendly person out there, but some things really baffle me like people constantly buying plastic single-use water bottles. Sometimes it’s necessary to have a single-use plastic water bottle, but to avoid situations where you may purchase a plastic water bottle, keeping a reusable water bottle with you at all times is a great way to reduce your plastic.
Not only will using a reusable water bottle be great for the environment, but you will also more likely to stay more hydrated and drink more water throughout the day with having one always with you. I like to never leave the house without my water bottle.
I love the Hydroflask bottles or like we have Thermaflask water bottle from Costco that keeps your cold drinks cold for 48 hours and your hot drinks hot for 24 hours. These water bottles are seriously amazing and I definitely recommend you pick one up!
Reusable Coffee Cup
If you love getting your daily coffee from your local coffee shop or Starbucks, bringing your own cup will not only minimize your waste, but also a lot of times save you money. I picked up a Starbucks coffee glass thermos and I use it everyday to bring my coffee into work. The awesome thing about this thermos is that it looks just like a Starbucks mug and when you bring it in to any Starbucks, you get a discount off your coffee order. Also with purchasing this mug, I got a free coffee as well.
I know that Starbucks around the world do that kind of promotion, but I’ve been to many local coffee shops as well that do it as well.
Bring Your Own Straw
This is something that I definitely need to work on, but bringing your own reusable straw instead of taking plastic ones is a great way to minimize your waste. It’s estimated that Americans use over 500 million straws every day, and most of those straws end up in directly in the ocean, polluting the water and killing marine life.
There are many different types of reusable straws or biodegradable straws out there. For at home use, I love using stainless steel straws. I just picked up a four pack from Kmart for $3 so they’re definitely affordable and such an easy way to stop throwing away plastic straws and help save the ocean as well. Here’s an awesome pack of stainless steel straws from Amazon.
Reusable Batteries
This is something that didn’t even cross my mind until looking up other tips online. I’ve used reusable batteries in the past, but just recently I’ve been using disposable batteries for my electronics. Not only is this very wasteful and gets expensive, but it’s also bad for the environment.
Getting a pack of reusable batteries will cost you about $20 but you can keep reusing them over and over again. Definitely, a more efficient way to get power and such an easy switch to do.
Skip on the Produce Bags
This is something that we just stopped doing recently. Although grocery stores charge for the shopping bags, they don’t charge for the plastic produce bags that you find in the aisles. A lot of people use them to separate their produce, but they’re really unnecessary. You should be washing your produce anyway before consumption so just laying them in your shopping cart or picking up one of these reusable produce bags, will help you reduce your waste when it comes to shopping.
Skip Packaged Items
Along with the produce bags, skipping already packaged items is a great way to reduce your waste and be more Eco-friendly. Some items are obviously packaged and until there’s an alternative option, you may have to keep getting those items. However, produce like potatoes, fruit like apples, and even leafy greens are typically available in both pre-packaged and loosely available on the shelf.
Although packaged items are more convenient, they’re using so much plastic to package those items. You’re also paying for that convenience factor of being pre-packed. If you look at the prices, you will see that normally the loose items on the shelf are cheaper per unit than the already pre-packed items. Once again, you’re saving money and reducing your waste all at once.
Go Digital
Reducing your paper waste is an easy way to more environmentally smart. I’ve been implementing little things into my lifestyle to reduce my paper waste like writing notes on my phone app instead of on a piece of paper, not printing as much at work, and then also not taking catalogs from the shops at checkout.
Grocery stores like Aldi, always ask if you want next week’s catalog at checkout. I always pass on it and instead sign up for Aldi’s email to receive the catalog virtually. If you find that you’re always constantly getting catalogs given to you, pass, and instead subscribe online. It’s a little thing that make you feel like you’re not dramatically changing or missing out on anything, but it all adds up.
Eat Less Meat
We’re not vegetarians in our household. However, I’ve been trying to eat less meat for a while now and incorporating more vegetarian or vegan meals into our diet. Even eating one less meal a week with meat or eating meat only once a day is a great way to reduce your carbon footprint and be more Eco-friendly.
Beans are something that we found works great for our meat-free meals. Beans, especially kidney beans, nearly tastes like meat when combined in other dishes and has now become a staple in our household. Replacing ground beef in pasta meat sauce with kidney beans or making black bean tacos instead of tacos with meat is a great, healthier way, to enjoy the same flavors you love, but in a more Eco-friendly way.
Grow Your Own Produce
Something we love to do is garden. Gardening is not only so fun, but it’s very fascinating and gratifying watching something go from just a little seed, into a huge plant. Gardening is also really cool because you can grow your own produce. There’s something so satisfying about growing your own food and cooking with it.
We don’t have a huge backyard, but having a tomato plant, zucchini, fresh herbs, not only makes cooking more exciting, but it also saves us money with our grocery bill.
You don’t have to have a full-grown veggie garden in your backyard, but even just picking a few seedlings from the store and planting them is a very easy way to be more Eco-friendly.
Compost
Composting is something that my family did growing up. Now that I’ve moved to Australia, it doesn’t seem as popular here as it did back in the U.S. Whether you have a local garbage dump where you can bring your compost (like we did back home) or creating your own compost in your backyard, composting is actually a lot easier than you may think.
You can compost pretty much all your food scraps, egg shells, and household items like tissues. We still need to do some more research when it comes to composting as we will make our own compost for our veggie garden, but it’s definitely something that I want to get into in the near future.
Buy Second-Hand
Buying second hand is not only a great way to save you hundreds of dollars, but it’s more Eco-friendly to shop. When it comes to buying clothes, using sites like Poshmark, Thred Up or shopping at your local thrift store is a great way to get a new wardrobe on a budget, but also be more Eco-friendly.
I’m not against shopping at thrift stores for clothes, but recently I haven’t been buying many clothes and instead, I’ve been buying household furniture and decor. We love buying second-hand for furniture. After being a college graduate and not having all the money in the world, buying used items is a very practical, affordable way for us to furnish our home.
I’ve mentioned before on my blog how we’ve gotten numerous items from the Facebook Marketplace for either completely free or a very low price! We’ve received our guest room bed, all of our wardrobes in our home, our dining room table, coffee table, bar stools, couch, computer desk, sideboard, drawers, and numerous other random household items all second-hand.
Shopping second hand from the Facebook Marketplace or your local Salvation Army allows you to pick up some really good quality items for a fraction of the price. Instead of picking up a $50 sideboard from Kmart that’s really worth probably $20, paying $100 for a second-hand sideboard that cost originally $1500 will not only last longer, but it’s a lot better quality and something I would rather have in my home.
Related Post:5 Ways to Refresh Your Home for Free
Reuse Packaging
I absolutely loving reusing glass jars. The coffee that we were buying for a while came in glass containers. Instead of recycling those glass containers, I’ve kept them and used them for a number of different things around the house. I’ve used them as flower vases, ways to organize pantry items, and as storage for random items like laundry detergent.
Glass jars can be expensive so I like to think as them as free gifts with purchase and reuse them all over our home. You can see some of the ways I’ve reused jars in my house by checking our my Christmas decorating on a budget post and my Decorating on a budget post.
Another packaging item that I love to use is packing items like tissue paper and boxes. Boxes from shipping and tissue paper that comes inside boxes or shopping bags, is perfect to use to wrap gifts for birthdays or the Holidays. My family always saved gift bags and tissue paper and that’s something that we definitely do now as well.
Sustainably Sourced Meat
Along with eating less meat, eating sustainably sourced meat is something we’re doing to try and be more Eco-friendly. If you don’t want to give up eating meat, I totally understand where you’re coming from. Recently, I’ve been wanting to be more informed with where our meat was coming from. Researching companies, reading labels and switching from sustainably-sourced tuna and fish and grass-fed organic beef is a better way to not only eat for your health but for the environment as well.
Decorate With Plants
As I mentioned, we love plants. Not only have we loved growing our garden outside, but we’re also been loving decorating our home with plants inside as well. Plants just make me so happy. Walking into a room with tons of plants just make space feel so homey and alive. Plants create a great atmosphere and also purify the air for you as well.
Along with plants being a great decoration and improving the mood of the space, they’re also a great, Eco-friendly way to decorate your home. Instead of decorating with consumer items like random knick-knacks, decorating with plants is a lot more affordable and is much better for the environment.
I also want to mention that artificial plants are not what I mean when I say to decorate with plants. I know taking care of plants isn’t for everyone, but plastic artificial plants are definitely not the most Eco-friendly option out there to decorate your home. I’m not saying to stop buying artificial plants if you like the look of them, but maybe challenge yourself instead of getting that fake plant, try getting a real succulent or snake plant, something that’s pretty hard to kill and doesn’t require much water at all. Do your research on how to take care of them, and add it to your space. It’ll definitely fill your space with a nicer vibe than a artificial plant ever would.
Reusable Cleaning Products
If you’ve checked out my cleaning videos on YouTube or my cleaning posts on my blog as my favorite cleaning products, you would know that I try to use the most Eco-friendly or non-toxic cleaning products available to me. Making your own cleaning products is definitely an option, but there are some cleaning products that I enjoy using and think that they do a better job than a combination that I would make myself.
That being said, being smarter with my purchases when it comes to cleaning products is a great way to be more Eco-friendly and waste conscious. Instead of buying brand new disposable bottles of my Method cleaning products every single time I run out, reusing my previous bottle and refilling it, is a really simple way to reduce my plastic. Normally one of the bottle refills has multiple refills of cleaning products in that one container. That means that instead of buying say 5 bottles of that cleaning product, I’m just buying one bottle to refill. It’s not perfect, but it’s a lot more Eco-friendly than constantly buying single-use packaging.
Related Posts: Clean With Me: My Favorite Cleaning Products
Ditch the Dish Sponge
Sponges may contain plastics, dyes, and synthetic disinfectants and if you’re going through a sponge weekly, that’s a lot of unnecessary waste. Not only are sponges not the most hypoallergenic products out there, but they’re pretty wasteful. There are more Eco-friendly dish sponges out there that are made up of biodegradable parts, but I recommend instead of a dish sponge using a dish brush to hand wash your dishes.
Using a dish brush cleans your dishes just as well, if not better than a dish sponge and it’s a lot my hypoallergenic. When you feel like you need to give your dish brush a good deep clean, you can either stick it in a bowl of hot water, vinegar and baking soda, or simply just run it in the dishwasher with the rest of your dishes. Instead of throwing out a sponge every week, you’re eliminating that waste altogether by just washing a dish brush instead.
Replace Paper Towels
Reducing our paper towel use is something we’ve definitely been working on. Not that we go through paper towels like crazy, but it’s something that we definitely don’t need to use as much. Using microfiber cloths to clean or old rags to wipe up a spill is a very easy way to be less wasteful, but also saves a lot of money with not having to buy paper towels.
We also like to use kitchen wash cloths to wipe our counter. Not only is it much stronger than a paper towel, perfect for scrubbing off stubborn spills, but it’s a lot less waste and you can constantly use it over and over again. We just keep our wash cloth over our sink along with our dish brushes. This is something that my parents had growing up and it works really well.
Donate
This is something that I think we’re pretty good at. With cleaning and organizing, I’m someone who absolutely loves decluttering as well. I do like going shopping for clothes and decorating our home, although I’ve been trying to cut back on it. Another thing that baffle me is when people throw out perfectly good items into the trash. Donating your unwanted items is better for the environment, but also donates to good cause or charity as well.
Go to the Library
This is something that we only started to get back into doing recently. I used to absolutely love the library and how expensive books are nowadays, why I didn’t borrow a book from the library and return it instead of buying for the past few years, is beyond me. A lot of times if library’s don’t have the book you’re looking for, they go out of their way to buy the book to add to their collection. Once again, saving you money, but being more Eco-friendly.
I hope you found my list of 20 Easy Ways You Can Become More Eco-Friendly helpful. As I mentioned, this list may not seem like anything groundbreaking or like switching out these items will really make a difference, but everything adds up! The whole point of this list is to show you how truly easy and uninterrupted your life can be with just making more environmentally friendly choices and minimizing your waste. It’s not a perfect list and there’s plenty of room for improvement, but it’s a start in the right direction and hopefully giving you the inspiration you need to become more Eco-Friendly and waste conscious.
I hope you enjoyed this blog post and got inspired to make some changes in your life to be more Eco-Friendly. What’s your favorite Eco-Friendly tip? Let me and the others know in the comments down below!
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