The term eco-friendly means earth-friendly or not harmful to the environment. Therefore, to live a more eco-friendly life, you actively seek ways to eliminate harmful practices that have a negative impact on the planet. For example, making a conscious decision to reduce the amount of plastic you use or purchasing eco-friendly cleaning products can contribute to the protection of the planet.
There are many changes that you can make to your life to start living a more eco-friendly life and in this article, we are going to outline some of the tweaks you can make to your life to reduce your carbon footprint and to contribute to the protection of the planet as a whole.
Reduce Your Energy Consumption
One of the simplest ways of living a more eco-friendly life is to reduce your energy consumption. How can you do this? There are many ways but the first thing that you can do is switch the light off. If you are not in the room, just switch the light off.When you go to bed, instead of leaving your television on standby, switch it off altogether, this can significantly help to reduce your overall energy consumption.
Make Your Own Cleaning Products
Have you ever thought about making your own cleaning products? Doing so, can actually reduce the amount of harmful chemicals that end up polluting our waterways. Many mainstream cleaning products contain harmful microplastics and chemicals that are detrimental to the overall health of the environment. Making your own natural cleaning products at home will reduce plastic waste too which is another excellent step in the right direction.
Go Plant-based
Eating meat is not the most eco-friendly practice. A burger or beef steak might taste nice however, raising cows for food consumption is harmful to the environment. If we used the majority of the land we used to rear cows for food consumption for vegetation instead, there would be a huge reduction in harmful emissions that negatively impact the environment. If you want to live a more eco-friendly life, reduce the amount of meat you consume and increase the amount of plant-based foods you consume instead.
You don’t have to go 100% plant-based; however, you can choose one or two days in the week to eat only plant-based foods. Start with meatless Monday and work your way up by reserving more days in the week for meatless meals.
Use Renewable Energy
Take your eco-friendly journey one step further by using renewable energy. There are different forms of renewable energy such as wind power, hydro power or solar power. In the home, you can try solar power by enlisting the help of a solar panel company. They can install solar panels as an off grid solution or as a backup that will essentially reduce the amount of non-renewable energy that you utilize.
Buy Second Hand Clothes
Instead of heading to your local cheap fashion store to buy your clothes, head to the thrift store instead. Textile waste is the second most polluting industry in the world therefore, instead of contributing to the massive problem that is textile waste, purchase some second hand clothing and reduce the amount of clothes that end up in landfills.
Reduce Plastic Usage
Plastic is cheap and convenient; however, its environmental impact is shocking. Plastic production is a major cause of pollution, also plastic waste ends up in landfill and in our waterways. It pollutes the ocean and kills ocean life too therefore, if you want to reduce the amount of plastic you use, stop drinking bottled water and use a reusable water bottle instead. Use glass containers and bottles and use reusable grocery bags instead of using plastic grocery bags.
Stop Wasting Food
It is definitely easier said than done to stop wasting food. However, you can drastically reduce the amount of food you waste by freezing your leftovers, freezing fruits and vegetables when you can. Donating your surplus food to homeless shelters and making use of the reduced food they sell at the supermarkets at the end of the day.
Grow Your Own Food
Grow your own food and reduce packaging, transportation and pollution. Grow your own fruits and vegetables and start living a more eco-friendly life.
Shop Locally
When you travel long distances to shop, you contribute to pollution and when you shop locally, you reduce the amount of resources used to transport your produce, this is good news for the environment.
As you can see, there are many things that you can do to start living a more eco-friendly life. It all starts with the conscious decision to change. Use some or all of the eco-friendly lifestyle tweaks in this article to start protecting our precious planet.
