Every day we make choices in our lives that affect the environment, the climate and the people around us. Environmental sustainability doesn’t mean that you should stop consuming, but rather to be aware of your resource consumption and reducing unnecessary waste.
That’s why we encourage people, not to stop consuming but making conscious choices when doing so. But how do you do it? Here’s 3 easy tips to think about in your everyday life to be more sustainable.
1. Think twice before buying something new
We’re going to quote our own ambassador Engin here and say “Never throw away something before you google the 3 RE words: REuse, REpair or REpurpose“. Same goes for buying something new because every product we purchase has an environmental footprint, from the materials used to create it to the shipping.
Getting something new, only for the sake of new, is not the way to go for our planet. Each product the world creates, comes with a cost. Processing, waste, chemicals, manufacturing, transportation. It adds up, and wears us down. So think twice before buying something new.
2. Reduce your household energy
An easy way to integrate environmental change in your everyday life is to cut down on your household energy use. The first thing you can do is to turn off appliances and lights that you’re not using - it’s that simple.
Another way is to hang your clothes to dry instead of using the dryer, or open the window instead of turning on the air conditioning. There’s tons of small changes that can make a big difference in your own household. It might not be groundbreaking but you have to start somewhere, right?
3. Dispose the disposables
If you look around in your home you’ll probably find disposable plastic products like coffee cups, straws or bags. You might not be able to remove all the plastic in your life but trust us when we say that you can replace most of the single-use plastic products you have with sustainable choices. Start buying reusable products for the stuff you often throw away in the trash anyway.
Many of the environmental issues stem from toxins released into the environment due to disposable trash. When you buy something new, think about the life expectancy of the product you're buying. How long does it take before it ends up in the trash?