Celebrated on April 22, Earth Day is a global reminder to be conscious of the impact each and every one of us has on the planet.
Though this is something we should be keeping in mind each and every day, Earth Day reminds us to examine the choices we make and how they all impact the environment.
Whether you’ve been making sustainable, zero-waste and Eco-friendly choices for years or are just getting started in your journey to go green, there are many ways we can all be more sustainably-minded.
Many of these choices are easy to make and allow you to keep living your daily life, just in a more Eco-friendly way. Read on to see some of the easy ways you can start going green, for Earth Day and beyond!
Reduce Intake of Single-Use Items
Many people’s days are fueled by their to-go coffee from the nearest coffee shop in the morning, afternoon pick-me-ups with a soda from the vending machine, and take-out from nearby restaurants for dinner. As innocent as these may seem, they have a much more sinister impact on the environment than we may realize.
Around 8 million metric tons of plastic end up in the ocean each year, many of those tons being plastic cups, straws, bags, and cutlery.
While this may seem like a scary statistic, there are small adjustments you can make to your daily life that will significantly help the environment, with small impacts on the way you live.
These changes are as easy as making your coffee at home, or investing in a reusable coffee cup and straw to bring to cafes, in the morning; picking up a reusable water bottle or choosing recyclable metal or glass containers for soft drinks; and simply asking for no single-use cutlery when you get take-out and reusing those containers.
These simple choices allow you to keep doing what you want to do, while reducing the amount of single-use items you consume that will eventually end up in a landfill, or worse, the ocean.
Be Smart and Savvy at Home
Just like you can make smarter choices while out and about, you can make those same well-informed, environmentally-friendly choices in your own home to start making a difference. These adjustments are easy, and once you know about them you’ll wonder why you didn’t start sooner.
One easy way to be more sustainable from home is by putting pots and pans on the correct-sized burners. You may not have even known this was an area of energy waste you were contributing to, but home energy waste is a huge contributor to air pollution, greenhouse gases, and other detrimental effects on our environment.
You can help make your impact smaller by putting small pots and pans on small burners, and large ones on bigger burners. This small change will help lower your impact as a whole, without causing a major lifestyle shift!
Another simple way to live an eco-friendly lifestyle to make a green home is through air-drying your laundry, if feasible. Washers and dryers use a lot of energy, so bring your footprint down even more through opting for the traditional way to dry your clothes, as well as using eco-friendly cleaners.
Making this shift will help you waste less energy, and allow you to enjoy the fresh smell of sun-dried clothes.
Going Green for Earth Day
There are many small shifts we can all make that help ensure our planet will be around to enjoy for the generations to come.
Through making small steps like these, we can all lower the impact we have on the environment and see that a green lifestyle isn’t hard to achieve at all—it just takes small steps, and a bit of practice.
For even more ways to go green on Earth Day and beyond, check out this visual from Wikibuy.
Image courtesy: Wikibuy
