13 Ways To Live A More Sustainable Lifestyle
Cutting back on some of the pleasures of life doesn’t sound like a very attractive idea, does it?
Nope.
As daunting as it may seem, living a more sustainable lifestyle doesn’t necessarily entail canceling out everything that is enjoyable about your life. On the contrary, I’ve personally found that the more I’ve delved into sustainable living, the more I feel I’ve gained from it.
How is that possible, doesn’t living more sustainably involve buying an electric car and living off-grid?
Sure, in an ideal world this would be preferable. But that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s practical for most people or within reach for others...
...let’s be honest, Telsas don’t come cheap.
Instead, you can set yourself smaller, more achievable sustainable living goals.
Seriously, the old cliche “every little bit counts” definitely applies to sustainable living. Micro changes in our lives can have macro effects on the world’s environment.
So with that in mind, I’ve listed below 13 micro lifestyle changes that will not only help the environment but also have a positive outcome on your life too.
Let’s take a look.
Sustainable Home Living
Replace your old outdated CFL bulbs with LED globes. Not only do LED lights last longer, saving you time running to the shops and money buying new ones, but they also use significantly less power than their CFL counterparts.
Instead of turning on the heater, pull on another sweater or open up the curtains on a bright sunny day in order to allow more light to come into your home. Natural light is great for our mood, saves power and money, and allows you to soak up some much-needed vitamin D.
Your clothes also enjoy the sunshine! Rather than doing your washing on a rainy or cloudy day, why not save up a load of washing and do it all at once on a nice warm sunny day. That way you don’t have to use the dryer so often. Plus, you have a good excuse for letting your washing pile up if the weather is bad.
If you do have a piece of clothing that you really need washed, why not hand wash it? Handwashing in a bucket uses less water and power. And as an added bonus, it’s a super quick way to wash something if you are in a hurry!
I get it, some people like junk mail. I personally don’t, so I’ve installed a no junk mail sign on my letterbox which, of course, you can too. If you are one of the people who enjoys flicking through local catalogs, why not sign up to your favorite store’s email list instead. That way you’ll save paper and also the hassle of checking your mailbox so often.
I love a long hot shower as much as the next person, however, taking long showers wastes a lot of precious clean water. To curb my long shower taking habit, I’ve started to time myself, massively cutting back my showering time. You can also try timing yourself or, even better, save up your showering time by only showering every two or three days and then taking a nice long shower as a reward.
Growing your own fruits and vegetables in a garden bed or in pots is a great way to not only save a bit of cash but also reduce your carbon footprint. Often the produce bought from the store isn’t grown and harvested locally, meaning it is transported either from interstate or from overseas. By growing in your own backyard you can seriously reduce this impact as well as cut back on the herbicides, weedicides, and pesticides that are used on commercial crops. And as an added bonus, you will be supporting many invertebrates species like bees that are seriously under threat from many commercial agricultural practices. Plus reduce eutrophication of our oceans which is a result of nutrient runoff of agricultural fertilizers from farmed areas.
Sustainable Work Life
Cycling, skating, or walking to work seriously cuts back on the emissions you personally admit into the Earth’s atmosphere. Which of course is a big step in the right direction to curbing climate change and, of course, you’ll personally benefit as well. You’ll get some much-needed exercise, reduce the stress of negotiating busy motorways, and clear your head before arriving at work and after leaving the office after a long stressful day.
If you live too far away from work or just can’t motivate yourself to tackle those cold winter mornings, public transport is your next best option. It’ll, of course, help to curb those emissions and also allow you to catch up on those unanswered emails, run over the day’s meeting notes, or check out your upcoming schedule.
Where possible, go electric. If skateboarding to work seems too much, why not grab yourself an electric skateboard or electric scooter? Or, when looking to purchase your next car, opt for an electric or hybrid-powered model.
Sustainable Shopping
Single-use plastic bags and other similar plastics are a disaster for both our planet and many animals that inhabit it. Plastic bags often end up in waterways and eventually into the world’s oceans causing many problems. Turtles, fish, seabirds, whales, and dolphins are just a few animals that either ingest or get caught in plastic bags and other plastics. By reducing your plastic use you are not only reducing the impact on the earth you are also reducing the amount of plastic you and your family are exposed to. We just like any other animal, inadvertently ingest plastic from eating out of plastic containers that leach plastics into our food, ingesting fish or other river and ocean organisms like shellfish, or even from the microplastics that are stripped from our clothes when washed in the washing machine.
Unfortunately, not all of us have room to grow fruits and vegetables. If this is the case, perhaps as an alternative to shopping at large supermarkets and grocers you could opt to shop at local markets or directly from local farmers or suppliers. This will reduce the demand for products shipped in from abroad, it will support your local producers and farmers, reduce your shopping costs, and may even have a beneficial impact on your health. Local produce is picked later as it doesn’t require being shipped from long distances. This allows the fruits and vegetables to reach it’s fullest nutritional value compared to produce that is picked too early which often is the case with interstate and overseas products.
Buy second-hand goods whenever you are able to. Facebook Marketplace, eBay, Local opportunity shops, etc. are all great places to find bargains. By buying second hand you are reducing the need for new products to be produced which in turn reduces new materials like metals, plastics, and woods to be sourced and manufactured.
Conclusion
Sustainable living really doesn't involve changing your whole life. By implementing small lifestyle changes and forming sustainable habits we can all help to reduce our overall impact on the earth and it’s very finite resources.
If we all do our part we can help restore our planet to its former beauty while preserving it for our children and the many organisms that we share it with.