5 Everyday Habits To Live Sustainably

Having a healthy and sustainable lifestyle isn’t always easy and is mostly considered a more expensive lifestyle. Other citied obstacles include a lack of support from government and companies. But what if you could be sustainable at your own home without having high costs? Let me tell you 5 easy ways to do that:

1. Saving energy:

By using less energy, you can reduce carbon emissions, lower greenhouse gasses and other pollutants. There are several ways you can save electricity at home, including switching off appliances, turning your heater down, even hanging your clothes to dry instead of using a drier. When it’s still bright outside, utilizing the natural light is much better than switching on light bulbs and finally turning off electronics, sockets, switches when you are not using them make a huge difference. 

2. Reduce/ Reuse/ Grow 

Recycling is an extremely important aspect to help live a sustainable lifestyle. It saves water, energy, lowers pollutants and greenhouse emissions, improves air and water quality and so much more! Most places around cities have recycle bins and places you can recycle, visiting them often and putting the waste in the correct bins make a difference! 

By growing your own fruit and vegetables you can easily ensure that you will not be using pesticides that will contribute to water and air pollution. This will also help to reduce the amount of fossil fuels used to transport the fruits and vegetables to the supermarket. 

3. No more plastic! 

Researchers show that there are now 5.25 trillion macro and micro pieces of plastic in our ocean. This plastic ends up on beaches/ animals accidentally eat it/ few animals choke from the plastic thinking it's food. 100 million marine animals die each year from plastic waste alone and 100,000 marine animals die from getting entangled in plastic yearly. By cutting down on plastic we can prevent this from happening. Instead of taking plastic bags from the supermarket, make one purchase of a reusable bag that can fit all your groceries and use it every time you go to the supermarket. Metal straws are so much better than plastic ones and aren’t that expensive to purchase and are easy to clean. Making one purchase will benefit you in the long run! 

4. Cut down as much as possible!

Ask yourself how long do I spend in the shower? Your answer might be shocking to you, for a standard shower every minute equates to 2.5 gallons of water and an average family uses up to 40 gallons of water in the shower per day. Whether it’s how long you shower for or how long you keep the heating on or even how long you keep the kettle boiling for a tea you are going to drink later, all the time and energy adds up! 

5. Spread the word!!

Setting examples for others and telling them how you are living a sustainable life and showing them how easy it is can influence them to do the same and sometimes people just need that encouragement to make a difference in their lifestyle. 

Help our planet and make that difference! We can all do it together... at the end of the day. It is our home. 

~ Shreeya Makhija