If you are wanting to be more eco-friendly but aren’t sure where to start beyond carrying a reusable water bottle and a cotton tote bag then read on for my simple ways to help the environment.
Plant trees… without leaving your sofa!
- Download Treeapp. You watch an ad, they plant a tree. Just spend a minute of your time a day and help to contribute towards global reforestation projects. At no cost to you! But of course you may be inspired by the new brands you discover along the way.
- Switch search engine. Ecosia is a search engine that plants trees. By making Ecosia your default search engine you can be climate active every single day. Easy peasy.
Go a step further with your recycling
I can’t speak for everyone globally but certainly in the UK, local councils provide recycling collections alongside general household waste collection. Where I live there is food waste recycling, garden waste recycling and a mixed recycling collection (paper, card, tins etc). However not everything can be recycled curb side so consider these options before sending more waste to landfill.
- Soft Plastics. Many soft plastics such as crisp packets and bread bags cannot be recycled by your local council but will state on them that they can be recycled at supermarkets or large stores. I collect my soft plastics and then dispose of them at one of my local Co-op stores.
- Cosmetics and toiletries. The beauty industry adds a whopping amount of single use plastic to the planet, much of which cannot be recycled through mainstream channels. Boots offer an incentive to recycle your hard-to-recycle product packaging with them. Upload a photo of your product packaging to their app and once you have at least 5 approved items, drop them off in store. You can then gain 500 Advantage Card points when you spend £10.
- Clothing. Many charity shops take clothing but what happens to the items that are no good for reselling? H&M will take any unwanted clothes or textiles and either rewear, reuse or recycle. They also offer an incentive of £5 off your next purchase (with minimum spend amount).
Join your local library
I was spurred on to join the library because I was finding keeping a baby entertained all day every day quite challenging. The less we buy, the better it is for the planet and our wallets, so borrowing books is the perfect solution.
Initially I began borrowing baby books for my daughter but since my kindle went kaput I’ve also started borrowing books for myself. I wish I had joined the library sooner. The library is also where I found the book Is it really green? and began consciously thinking of simple ways to help the environment.
Eat more plant based foods
Now I’m not here to tell you to go vegan but in case you didn’t know, farming animals for meat and dairy requires a lot of space. This means that rainforests are destroyed to make way for agriculture. If everyone switched to a plant based diet or at least cut back on their meat and dairy consumption, we would need less land for farming animals meaning more land for endangered and native species.
I am a vegetarian. I haven’t quite made the leap to veganism yet but have participated in Veganuary a couple of times. Eating less meat really isn’t a big deal as there are plenty of tasty alternatives out there. Although I will say this is very location dependent but as a Brit I am very fortunate that the UK is one of the best countries to be a vegetarian/vegan.
If going vegetarian seems overwhelming, try Meat Free Monday where you go plant based for one day of the week. It can still make a difference.
Cut back on single use plastic
We’ve already had plastic bags and plastic straws be banned to some extent but as a society we need to do better. Our earth is literally drowning in plastic pollution. As a consumer it is almost overwhelming knowing how to go plastic free.
So my advice is to just take baby steps. Take a look around your home and see what you can make swaps for. I will be writing some easy ways to reduce your plastic waste in a future blog post.
What have you already done to help the environment? Leave me a comment below.
