It is disheartening to look at the state of our planet and it is hard to know if our individual efforts would make any difference to this ever-changing impact of human lives happening on the environment but every positive action has a positive impact, whether it is big or small. Embracing such a lifestyle that you are contributing as minimal waste as possible is important for many reasons and the obvious one is that you are leading to less pollution and trying to live a green life. Here are 7 Simple Ways By Which You Can Go Green:
1. Avoid Buying Bottled Water
Unless you are very thirsty or there is some contamination crisis in your area, avoid buying bottled water to reduce the waste because plastic water bottles have been found to be one of the top contributors to environmental pollution. The bottled water is also no better than tap water and when analyzed then bottled water from many brands was found to contain contaminants.
The production of plastic water bottles requires up to 17 million barrels of oil every year and these bottles can take at least one thousand years to decompose. When decomposing, these bottles can leak dangerous and harmful chemicals which can cause reproductive disabilities and cancers.
2. Go Digital
Try to go digital because the more you are doing online, the less paper and other material you will need which will help decrease the environmental pollution. Let’s talk about printing papers. Instead of sending letters and memos, you can send out emails and digital memos which will help reduce the carbon footprint in the environment and it will also decrease deforestation since wood products such as paper are one of the top contributors to deforestation. You can save the documents digitally on your computer instead of printing them.
When all these steps will be taken by every individual then the change will happen and it will substantially improve the environment.
3. Pick Environmental Friendly Games
Let’s talk about games, card games are very popular around the world and they are played by millions of people in different parts of the world. However, they are usually made of plastic and it can contribute to environmental pollution. Although one pack of cards might seem harmless, however, when millions of people are playing around the world then it would contribute a lot to environmental pollution.
For this, you can switch to playing card games digitally on your PC or mobile phone. There are tons of different websites and apps available where you can play popular games such as Solitaire, Crosswords, Spider Solitaire, Sudoku, etc and in this way, you will be reducing your impact on the environment. If that is not possible then consider buying an eco-friendly version of the cards.
4. Avoid Using Plastic bags
Plastic bags have been one of the top contributors to environmental pollution and billions of plastic bags are used around the world every year. These bags start out as fossil fuels but end up as deadly waste in the oceans and landfills. Birds and other sea animals often mistakenly eat shredded plastic bags for food and end up filling their stomach with toxic materials.
Not only are birds affected by it but other sea animals such as turtles, fish, etc are also mistaken by the shredded plastic bags and end up transferring this toxicity up the food chain.
Whenever you go out to events then you will probably be handed reusable bags that are usually made out of cloth or sometimes they come with the goods that you buy. You can collect these reusable bags and when required then you can take these along with you instead of using plastic bags.
5. Cook Your Food At Home With Fresh Ingredients
To reduce your impact on environmental pollution, you can cook at your home with fresh ingredients. Buying fruits and vegetables from your local farmers’ markets means you are not only supporting the community but you are also not contributing to the waste since there are no trucks or vehicles involved in the transport of the food.
6. Choose Cardboard Products Instead of Plastic
When you get the choice to pick between plastic or cardboard then remember that cardboard is easier to recycle than plastic and since cardboard is made out of wood, wood products can easily be broken down without adding a lot of weight.
Whenever you have the choice to choose between the two then always choose cardboard. For example, getting detergent in a cardboard box instead of the bottle would be the right thing to do!
7. Re-Use Instead of Recycle
Before you think about recycling anything, think about whether you can re-use those items or not? Most of the time we have items and products that can be reused and it would be better that if you re-use an item instead of recycling it. Think whether you can print on both sides of the paper or can you use scrap paper for the shopping list? This goes on and there are multiple things that can be reused for the same or different task.
