Conscious living can be overwhelming, we get it. But what if we told you, you don’t have to replace every product you use in one day but gradually over weeks-months-and years?
Sounds easier, right?
If conscious and sustainable living has been on your mind, this blog is the little push you always needed. Here are a few product switches you can make a beginning today:
Shopping Bags and Takeaways
You just purchased groceries and were handed a plastic bag with groceries in it? Simply take out your own cloth bag and refuse to take the plastic bag.
“On average, if you refused single-use plastic bags, you would alone save 500 such bags from ending up in landfills! Say you were to shop for 50 years, you’d be saving 25,000 bags from polluting the earth, ALONE!”
Takeaways sadly come in plastic containers or non-reusable packaging. We don’t know if we will have leftovers from the table or that we’ll need a takeaway. Although, on days when we know we’ll be packing food to take it home, we just need to slip our reusable containers from home in our bag. Most restaurants are more than happy to put the food in them.
Personal Care
Personal care is more complicated than it looks. What products are truly sustainable? What is safe for us and the environment? The best thing to do is to turn to the ingredient list. Ewg.org is a good place to start if you want to understand the ingredients better.
Swap your regular plastic toothbrush for a bamboo one, which is biodegradable and renewable. Consider trying shampoo bars instead of liquid shampoo in plastic bottles.
Look for refillable containers for your favorite lotions and creams or containers that you can reuse! These simple switches can reduce plastic waste and promote a more sustainable bathroom routine.
Eco-friendly Clothing
10% of the global carbon emissions result from the fashion industry, that’s as much as the European Union. It dries up water sources, and pollutes rivers and natural water bodies, while 85% of all textiles go to dumps each year. It is an alarming problem slowly being addressed by many companies and brands.
What can you do about it? Buy and wear your clothes more consciously. Say NO to fast fashion. Choose brands that opt for fabrics like organic cotton, hemp, natural linen, recycled polyester, lyocell, and modal to name a few. Check their certifications to avoid being greenwashed!
Carry Your Own Water Bottle
It is so important to keep sipping water, especially when we step out of our homes. If you know you’re going to be out for too long, carry your bottle! A 1ltr bottle will suffice for 4-6 hours easily! Need a refill later? Most restaurants are happy to do that for you too. Imagine the number of bottles you’d save from ending up in landfills!
Segregating your waste
This one isn’t a product switch but is still fairly simple to do. Do this if you are new to this -
- Keep two different dustbins - one for wet waste and one for dry.
- In the wet waste dustbin, all of your kitchen waste and leftovers go. This is compostable.
- In the dry waste dustbin, add tissues, packaging material, plastic, rubber, paper, glass and others.
- To take it a step further, wash any product, food or dirt off the plastic and give that away for recycling!
While rapid climate change is becoming a problem we’re more aware of, the time to make lifestyle changes is now. Get back to the basics - Reuse, Reduce, Recycle. Instead of exploiting the earth and its resources, let’s make the most out of what we already have in our homes and shelves.
We are ready to switch to conscious living, are you?
