The crew at AtHomeDaily has put together a list of ways to start living sustainably. Protecting our planet is important and it starts with you!
I hope you find these tips useful and easy to start incorporating into your lifestyle.
Reusable bag products for both groceries and produce
It takes 3.5 gallons of water to produce one paper bag. Produce bags are used for hours, only to transport goods from the grocery store to your home before they’re thrown away. Use reusable produce bags (or make your own from old t-shirts or plastic bags!) and write the product's plural numbers in your phone for the cashier. For takeout food, you can bring your own Tupperware to restaurants rather than using styrofoam or paper takeout boxes.
Food
When going to the grocery store, opt for buying food in bulk. It is cheaper, and if you are going to sections where oatmeal and nuts are sold, you can use reusable containers to attain them. Secondly, freeze foods. Don’t throw away food scraps. For example, you can freeze lemon juice, blended spinach and water then freeze the cubes to throw in smoothies for later use. You can also use this with tomato sauce, herbs, and olive oil to use for cooking.
Thrifting
Buying second-hand is ALWAYS better. A lot of fashion companies use unethical labor (also child labor), big fashion brands burn extra clothes to minimize the amount of supply and increase demand, and synthetic fibers are made using plastic which isn’t good at all (microplastics are released in INSANE amounts when you do laundry). The best thing to do is buy secondhand and treat your clothes nicely - air dry, wash sparingly and mend when broken. In my personal opinion, thrifting is a fun way to get creative with fashion and also find rare/unique clothing. I guarantee you that very few people, if any, will have the same clothes as you. You can’t go wrong!
Compost
When food waste goes into landfills, it isn’t able to properly decompose, return to the soil, and compost. Instead, it just turns into methane gas, which has more than 80 times the warming power of CO2 over the first 20 years after it reaches the atmosphere. To start composting, buy a metal container and put it in your fridge. Put scraps such as fruit and vegetables (including peels), stale or moldy bread, crackers, cereal, coffee grounds, tea, and leftover alcohol in it. Once the container is full, find your local landfill site and dump the scraps. During the composting process, microorganisms from the soil will eat the carbon-containing organic waste and break it down into natural fertilizer for the plants.
Washing and drying clothes
Through every machine and dryer cycle, the material on your clothes breaks down causing a short lifespan for the clothes. Additionally, every time you run the washing machine, you release about 700,000 microscopic plastic fibers into the environment. This comes from synthetic clothing items, which emit fibers into the water when washed. The fibers can harm aquatic animals that accidentally digest them. Hand wash and line dry your clothes not only so they don’t get worn out as easily but also because it saves so much energy and electricity.
Eat organic
Support pollinator populations by choosing foods that avoid pesticides and support companies that are organic and conscious about the chemicals they put into the environment. Also, food that isn’t organic is grown with lots of chemicals and pesticides and farm workers (often illegal immigrants) are at super high health risks like cancer. Go to your local grocery stores or farmer's markets (if available) and choose the organic options.
I highly recommend reading the book, “Seeing Green: Don’t Let Envy Color Your Joy” by Tilly Dillehay. You will learn the benefits sustainability has on the environment.
We can and should all be doing better to protect our earth for future generations. These tips and options for going zero waste and living sustainably will have a huge impact on our world. It starts with you!
