It’s great news that so many people all around the world are becoming more environmentally conscious. Taking responsibility for your personal impact on the environment will help to make the world a cleaner, better place and also save you money. Here are some suggestions for you to live a more responsible lifestyle, from your home to your food and fashion choices.
Get Real About Water
Living more responsibly means more than simply focusing on cutting down your energy consumption. It is a holistic process, which means one of the things you’ll have to start taking seriously is your water consumption. The first step should be to ensure you fix any leaks you have in the home, no matter how minor. Even if you have no leaks, there are other lifestyle changes you can make to save water. For example, don’t leave the tap running while you shave or brush your teeth. You may also want to consider investing in a low-flow showerhead, as studies have shown that they can save up to 160,000 litres of water in a family of four.
Switch to Sustainable Clothes Shopping
Did you know that the fast fashion industry is one of the largest contributors to environmental damage in the world? Every year, billions of tons of clothing are discarded, piling up in landfill sites across the globe. And with so many of these clothes made from artificial fibers like nylon, it can take hundreds of years for them to biodegrade. In fact, since artificial fibers haven’t been around for all that long, it’s safe to say that every item of clothing ever made using them is still sat somewhere in the world today! Fortunately, there is a growing trend for sustainable clothing. 34% of all fibers in ASOS brands are from sustainable sources, for example, with an aim to make that 100% by 2025. ASOS are also leading the way in human rights; training staff about modern slavery from the moment they join the company. As you can see, being responsible is about more than just cutting down your energy consumption.
Cook Smart
There are many ways to be smarter in the kitchen, and this can really help you to live a more responsible lifestyle. One important thing to note is that opening the oven door while cooking results in a huge amount of heat loss. Even if you only open it for a few seconds, it will take a significant amount of energy to restore the lost heat. Coffee pod waste is another big problem, with billions of the aluminium and plastic capsules ending up in landfill every year. The simplest solution is to drink coffee from a traditional drip coffee maker.
Use Natural Cleaning Products
The use of harmful, toxic chemicals for cleaning is damaging the environment. Every time you wash them away, they are entering the water supply, meaning the water will require extra purification before it is safe to use again. Fortunately, in most cases, you don’t really need to use those harmful cleaning products. For the vast majority of day-to-day cleaning jobs, you can use natural cleaning products such as citric acid, vinegar and bicarbonate of soda in place of bleach and other caustic chemicals, and they will be no less effective.
There is an ever-expanding body of evidence that global temperatures are rising at an unsustainable rate thanks to human activity all around the world. We are bombarded with worrying information and told that we simply have to change our ways, but many of us don’t know what we actually need to do. How can we make any kind of difference when it feels like everything we do has a negative impact on the environment?
Well, the good news is that, for individuals, it is all about making small changes in different parts of our lives. We don’t need to make the changes all at once; we can break it down into manageable chunks that we’ll barely notice in our day-to-day life. A responsible lifestyle is within your reach, and the tips listed above are a good place to start.
