Ideas for 'Living Green' Easily
Living ‘green’, ‘eco’, ‘sustainably’; being environmentally friendly in the way you live.
When I was at school many pupils’ thoughts immediately shifted to the legendary eco-warrior Swampy tunnelling under a bypass, referred to jokingly to support their dismissal of a part of life that, lets face it, they just didn’t want to think about.
Just recently Extinction Rebellion made a major impact in London and although some journalists referred to those protesting as mere hippies, I believe far fewer today would dismiss people’s rights to demand their environment and futures are protected.
But there are many much smaller, inconspicuous actions that could make an average life eco-friendly.
Buying energy efficient lightbulbs are one small step towards an eco-home. Compact florescent lights (CFL) have been on market for a long time, are widespread and cheap. These are far more energy efficient than old-school incandescent bulbs, but more efficient still are LED (light emitting diode) bulbs, now also widely available.
These are good for the environment because the less electricity used for lighting homes – the less is taken from the National Grid and the more that carbon free sources can fulfil demand! This is such an easy thing to change!
Also, on the day to day scale, changes in grocery shopping can lead to environmental benefits. It has been widely discussed in the British media recently that many people in the West are taking up vegan, vegetarian or flexitarian eating habits. This is great news for the climate and wildlife, as farming for plant-based diets produces far less in the way of greenhouse gases and lessens the burden put on land to feed and home livestock.
Whatever eating habits a person has; quite often each of us will pick up some fruit and veg! Legooms reusable vegetable bags are a natural progression for those with an increasingly plant-heavy diet and can give eco-credentials to those more traditionally omnivorous!
By replacing single use plastic grocery bags for the collection and storage of fruits and vegetables with Legooms bags – which can be used many times over; a shopper is keeping plastic from landfill and ocean. It does this by cutting the need for disposable bags and, because Legooms are made from recycled plastic bottles, their use is feeding a circular economy that reuses materials otherwise becoming waste and pollution.
Shopping with a preference for plant-based and recycled ingredients can extend for environmental benefits beyond the food shop too. For instance, buying detergents for washing up, laundry or household cleaning need not rely on synthetic chemicals and sources derived from fossil fuels.
There is usually a selection of non-polluting natural alternatives available in supermarkets – so when you need to clear up from whatever makes the mess in your home; be that cooking, kids or partner – your ecological impact can remain as positive as possible!
In fact, cooking itself can also be made green. A simple measure could be using a compostable food caddy where kitchen waste can go to be fed back into the circular economy as fertiliser. Going further, there is also such a thing as an electricity-free cooker! Ideal for cooking that casserole, curry or tagine otherwise taking many oven hours, not to mention kilowatt-hours, to perfect – these are on the market.
Once ingredients are simmering, you can simply wrap pots in specially designed insulated bags which retain heat, continuing to cook food for up to 12 hours without further electricity, gas or fire!
These are just a few ways of making anybody’s lifestyle effortlessly eco. They don’t cost the Earth.
Article by Stuart Ventress