Sustainable Life practices benefit not just the world, but also your own health. Keep reading to discover strategies for cutting down on single-use plastics, lessening your impact on the environment, and more.
People today aim to live a greener lifestyle for various reasons. To reduce their impact on the planet, some people choose to do this. Others do it to cut costs, and yet others do it to improve their health. Whatever your motivations may have been for wanting to live more sustainably and cut down on your carbon footprint, the first step is figuring out where to begin.
You may begin your transition to sustainable life practices in a variety of settings. Find out how you can green your lifestyle in this article.
What is sustainable living?
There are several upsides to adopting a more sustainable lifestyle, which may be defined as becoming more attuned to the ways in which one’s activities and decisions have an effect on the natural world and make adjustments appropriately. The benefits of cutting back on consumption and trash are not limited to the macro level. After making the first steps toward a greener way of life, you could even feel compelled to go as far as zero waste.
Why is sustainable living important?
In a nutshell, sustainable lifestyles can help to halt climate change, which is an urgently required outcome. The following data, provided by NASA, show the reality of climate change.
- Since the end of the 19th century, the average surface temperature of the Earth has increased by around 2 degrees Celsius.
- The years 2016 and 2020 will both go down in history as the hottest years ever.
- Since 1969, the first 100 meters of the ocean have warmed by more than 0.6 degrees.
- In the fourth place, annual ice loss from the Greenland ice sheet averaged 279 billion tonnes between 1993 and 2019.
- The rate of global sea level rise over the past two decades is twice as fast as it was a century ago.
Even while this is enough to make anybody worried about the environment, you can lessen the impact by changing your everyday habits and sharing the word about how to live more sustainably.
“While individual actions do matter, it’s more impactful when they’re amplified by a mass of people,”
asserts Kellogg
How can you make your way of living more sustainable?
Making adjustments to your routine is the first step in adopting a more eco-friendly way of life. Here, we’ll go through more than 50 suggestions for adopting a greener way of living.
A guide to greening your home life
Sustainable life can start with little adjustments to your daily routine and home environment. You can make some of the most widespread and consequential adjustments listed below.
Water conservation
Another step that you can take towards a sustainable life is to begin saving water around the house, simply pay closer attention to how much you use and waste while doing everyday chores.
Another easy way to start saving water is to turn off the water while you shave, brush your teeth, or wash the dishes. Use a bucket to collect the cold water while you wait for the shower to heat up, and then put it to good use by watering plants or doing housework. And if your washing machine or dishwasher is older than 20 or 30 years, you should think about upgrading to a modern one, which uses considerably less water efficiently.
Conserve energy
As with water use, most people underestimate their energy consumption at home, despite the fact that doing so would benefit the planet (plus takes some pressure off your wallet). The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and manufacturers have already done a lot of the legwork when it comes to figuring out how to save energy. Look for the blue ENERGY STAR mark when purchasing light bulbs or appliances; this indicates that the product has been independently certified as consuming less energy and cutting emissions sufficiently to minimize the air pollution the product is causing.
Keeping your fridge and freezer at the appropriate temperatures (just below 40 degrees and zero degrees, respectively) and ensuring that their doors seal correctly and stay closed are other sensible moves.
Ditch single-use plastics
Reducing plastic waste may start as simple as ditching the plastic straw. Products created from single-use plastics are designed to be used just once before being thrown away. These chemicals are often derived from fossil fuels. Straws, supermarket bags, candy wrappers, bottles, and more are all made of plastic and contribute to this problem. While certain plastic products, like surgical gloves, are essential, the majority of the 300 million tonnes of plastic we generate each year originates from one-time-use items.
Attempting to eliminate one’s use of plastic will greatly lessen the burden it places on the marine environment.
Sell undesirable items
It’s simpler than ever to make some extra cash by selling your used goods, whether they’re clothes, gadgets, or something else. That’s because there are so many internet marketplaces where you may securely reach folks who are seeking the precise goods you’re trying to say farewell to. Find a reliable marketplace with minimal complaints and negative reviews online if you want to sell your discards. Then, learn the site’s user policies—some sites only sell certain things, while others have unusual return policies or fees—and its payment methods, as some may not accept credit cards. Finally, while deciding on pricing, it’s a good idea to look at comparable things in other markets to see what the going rate is.
