Live a More Environmentally Friendly Lifestyle

Here are some low-budget, easy tips (beyond the ordinary) on how to decrease your carbon footprint. Also included are how these steps will help you, the environment, and those of us who need to live in it.

Steps

  1. Consider decreasing your meat consumption. More land has to be put into agricultural production to produce meat than to produce plant products. This means less "nature" for us to play in and wildlife to live in and more.
  2. Use a menstrual cup or cloth pads if you are a woman. This will really decrease the amount of waste you put into landfills each month. Menstrual cups are easy to use and very portable. Cloth pads take a little more effort, but less than you might think. And, while reusable products are a little expensive at first, in the long run they save you money. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menstrual_cup) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloth_menstrual_pads)
  3. Don't take notes in notebooks. Use a three ring binder and take notes on the back of paper that needs to be recycled. Recycle after it has writing on both sides. This will save energy that goes into recycling and slow global warming.
  4. Buy some canvas bags and use them at the grocery store. Keep them in your car so you don't forget to bring them. Alternatively use the plastic grocery bags as trash bags for small cans. Some stores will take bundles of plastic bags for recycling.
  5. Buy Bulk Food at your local health food store or in some grocery stores. Most food in those stores is more expensive but the bulk bins and bulk spices are often cheaper than grocery store equivalents and use less packaging.
  6. Be particular about the fish you eat. Many fish are over harvested or their capture has negative impacts on ocean ecosystems. You can download a regional seafood guide from the Monterrey Bay Aquarium at bins. They are a great place to begin exploring meat-free options such as textured vegetable protein.
  7. Reuse Broken Things. Reusing things instead of throwing them away will result in less garbage in landfills and less resource consumption.
  8. Create a Compost Bed. Toss in fruit and vegetable scraps instead of throwing those items in your garbage. This will cut down on the amount of your garbage, along with providing you eventually with some organic material for your garden or landscape plantings.
  9. When a bulb burns out, replace it with a compact fluorescent light, if size permits. These last far longer and use much less electricity than regular incandescent light bulbs. You can use 120W replacer at Costco. They only use 23W and work TERRIFIC! And they last 5 times longer than a standard 2000 reflector! They are VERY bright. You may want to use only a couple in the room, as they may make a difference!
  10. Cut up old/stained/holey shirts (or any absorbent material) to use asRecycle T Shirts Into Dish Cloths. Use them instead of tissues, paper napkins, paper towels, etc. Put them over bowls of soup in the microwave to prevent splatter, use them to clean up spills, etc. Keep a small bucket in a central location to toss them in once used, and wash them when you have a load.



Tips

  • Some grocery stores give you $0.05 credit on your receipt for every cloth bag that you bring from home to carry your groceries.

Warnings

  • Some grocery stores ask you to pay $.05 per plastic bag if you don't bring your own. This helps the environment by promoting better choices.

Related Articles

Retrieved from "https://kipkis.com/index.php?title=Live_a_More_Environmentally_Friendly_Lifestyle&oldid=358214"