Living an eco-friendly lifestyle is not as difficult as it is made to be. Just a few steps can go a long way in living a clean, environmentally friendly lifestyle. Mitigating your carbon footprint is not that tough, as it requires a few lifestyle changes and some creative ideas in mind. Living in peace with the world that encompasses us is of significant significance. You know better about yourself, and if you really want to make a difference, you have to understand how to reuse and recycle rather than buying new things. In this article we will give you some really easy tips to follow and make your transition to an eco-friendly lifestyle as smooth as possible.
Being an eco-friendly person is not that tough
An eco-friendly person is a little different from the lot. He is more conscious about how his actions can lead to a negative impact for complete environment. He is the one who believes that a small effort from his side can bring a big change for the entire mankind. He is the one who feel for his neighbor next door. He is also the one who thinks a lot less about himself and more about the entire community.
1. Plant a thought
For an eco-friendly person, planting trees is as natural as breathing. Planting trees not only cleans the air but also helps develop a moderate temperature for the surroundings. An eco-friendly person will always believe that you really don’t have to push a boulder to bring about change. Just small simple things like planting green trees are of great help.
2. Shut down the computers
People these days always feel overworked because of long working hours. So, the quite often feel it pointless to shut down their computers instead they just put them on sleep mode. An eco-friendly person will pledge not to do that because he knows that turning of the computers is a much wiser option as it nearly saves 40 watt-hours per day.
3. Pre-heat the oven
Pre-heat the oven only when you are planning to bake something or else turn it off. If you are planning to heat a dish the most appropriate thing would be to put the bowl inside the oven and then switch on the oven. It saves a lot of electricity and an eco-friendly person is always careful about it.
4. Less use of Paper Napkins
People these days love to have junk food like Burger, Pizzas and Hot Dogs. These junk foods often come with paper napkins, some of which are used and other wasted. An eco-friendly person will try to save those paper napkins then wasting it because he knows a huge number of napkins can be saved from landfills.
5. Recycle Newspapers
An eco-friendly person is more conscious about their environment. They will try to recycle the newspaper which they have already read because they know that it save the lives of millions of trees.
6. Buy local food
You love eating apples year round but they do not grow anywhere close to you the entire year. To fulfill your and demand of others like you, the non-season fruits and vegetables are sourced from distant lands, thus contributing to carbon emissions. If you want to do your bit towards sustaining environment, you should buy in season and locally grown fruits and vegetables. When there will be no demand for off-season vegetables, there will be no transportation and automatically the environment will become better.
Moreover, you should also buy local products as much as possible to reduce carbon footprint. You can eat locally produced food and buy locally produced goods which will support farmers and artisans/factories in your area.
7. Eat smart
Your eating habits contribute a lot towards increasing your carbon footprint. You need to do an in-depth research to find out what impact your food choice leaves on the environment, and ultimately on you. Researches show that a non-vegetarian meat-eating American produces approximately 1.5 tons more greenhouse gases than his vegetarian peer. It takes far less land and a number of resources to grow food crops than raising cattle for meeting food requirements of non-vegetarians.
8. Use oven’s top shelf
Considering this tip, you can reduce the time your oven takes to heat up your food, eventually saving electricity and your money. An oven runs on a heat mechanism and the top is the hottest area inside it. Therefore, placing your food plate on the top shelf will save your time and electricity, thus reducing your carbon footprint.
9. Walk, cycle or take public transport
You love your car but you ought to love your environment as well. It will only take care of you, if you tend to take care of it today. To reduce your carbon footprint and help sustain the environment, you should walk to office or to market if possible. You can even ride a cycle if you want but stop using your car a lot, as it brings into use a lot of fuel and contributes to the air pollution. Moreover, the increasing number of cars is making the roads and the streets too congested. Therefore, the ideal way to escape all such difficulties is to use public transport. You can also go for carpool, which is a great option too.
10. Say no to black trash bags
You must be using black trash bags at your home or office pretty ignorant of an important fact. Those black trash bags have black pigmentation, which prevents them from being recycled. They do not decompose and end up in landfill sites. Therefore, stop using them and go for white trash bags or any other green alternative you can come up with.
11. Use energy efficient appliances
You must have heard and must know about energy star appliances. Now it is high time you get home and start using them if you haven’t already. It is no rocket science getting your hands at such appliances, as they come with a big logo on them reading their energy star ratings.
12. Paint your roof white
This is the easiest you could do to curb your carbon footprint in summers. Your roof will not let the sunrays and heat pass. Your room temperature will not rise in summers, which means good electricity and money savings on your part.
13. Cooking
Cooking your meals at home is ecofriendly, as you can avoid processed foods packaged in plastic, which can be harmful to your health. Packaged foods have a huge carbon footprint as they use a lot of energy while they are stored or transported.
14. Reduce consumption
Do you really need twenty pairs of shoes? Some people have hundreds of pairs and tons of clothes which they never wear. Reducing consumption reduces demand and allows products to be spread among many people. Especially reduce use of plastics, and suppress the craving for yet another pair of distressed denims the production of which is extremely carbon intensive.
15. Driving
Drive at a consistent speed within the legal speed limit, and you might reduce fuel consumption. Switch off your engine when you are stuck in a traffic jam, do car-pooling, and walk or bike whenever possible to reduce the impact from your driving.
16. Keep your trashcans covered
You can avoid wildlife-human conflict by keeping trashcans inside till trash has to be collected, or firmly closing the lids. Wild animals living close to humans love to eat the food in trashcans which reduces their ability to forage and puts them at risk of having dangerous encounters with humans.
17. Try to find all details about your pets
Research the breed you want to keep as a pet and find out whether it is endangered or not. Many birds, fishes, reptiles and corals are sourced from the wild, unknown to you. Ensure that your pet is not an endangered species. Also, in case of certain dog breeds, find out whether you’ll be able to take care of them properly so that you don’t have to release them.
18. Stop eating meat
It’s tough to be a vegetarian, especially if you love the taste of chicken, lamb and beef. If you don’t want to leave meat entirely, then eating chicken is the best way you can reduce greenhouse emissions. One pound chicken production releases 13 times lesser emissions than one pound of beef.
19. Using phones and laptops responsibly
Switch off phones and laptops when they are not in use and replace them less frequently so that you don’t add to waste.
20. Bird proof windows
Birds’ worst enemy is glass – millions of birds are injured every year after colliding with glass windows. Removing potted plants from the vicinity of windows will cause less accidents, as birds are attracted to foliage. Attaching netting can deter birds, as well as switching off unrequired lights, especially during the fall and spring seasons.
21. Quit smoking
Smoking is not only bad for your health, but also for the environment’s health. Billions of cigarettes every year end up in oceans, rivers and lakes, making it a debris. Animals ingest the cigarette butts, which are toxic. Besides cigarette butts are non-biodegradable. Enough reason, we think, that you should quit smoking.
22. Conserve electricity and water
You can switch off lights and fans when you’re not in the room, conserve water by using low flow faucets, recycle water if you can, and use energy efficient appliances.
How to teach kids to live an eco-friendly lifestyle
1. Instruct about the Importance of Recycling
Talking about being eco-accommodating needs to be a top necessity of folks. What’s more, regularly, it needs to turn into your children’s top necessity too. Show them how to reuse. Converse with them about how very nearly everything might be utilized over and over. Make little compartments to serve your home reusing needs. Make certain to make them in such a route, to the point that the children discover them engaging and simple to utilize.
They could be simply general waste receptacles, yet shaded and named for their distinctive employments. In the event that you feel creative, draw pictures of the things that are to be discarded onto the relating holder.
2. Set a Proper Example Kids
Set a Proper Example Kids take after the cases they see. Whether the cases are great or awful, little youngsters have a tendency to duplicate that conduct. In this way, remembering that, it will be a ton better to set a great case, which your youngsters will then take after. Case in point, assuming that they see you turning off the water while you are brushing your teeth, the children may figure out how to do that too. Same strives for unplugging all electronic gadgets that are not being used. Children will see and take in these propensities as something ordinary and will discover that it is essentially the way it is carried out. You know the well known colloquialism, ‘monkey see, monkey do’, right? That being said, it applies well with kids as well.
3. Plant a Tree or Garden Together
Planting trees and enclosures can help show the cycle of nature. Caring for the arrangement won’t just educate your kid obligation, additionally how to take care of nature’s turf.
Summary on transforming into an eco-friendly lifestyle
We need to save it to the extent that this would be possible so we can carry on with a life in a nature’s turf. On the other hand, separated from doing these ourselves, it is imperative we pass on this green method for living to our youngsters also. The point when our kids grow up they can precede the mission of saving the earth, and afterward pass it on to their youngsters. It could be a tad hard to show our children such propensities; however, it is critical we do so. These are several functional thoughts on showing our youngsters how to be eco-accommodating. All these small changes or modifications to your habits will allow you to do your bit for the environment.