Being green and environmentally-friendly each and every day takes a lot of effort. But that doesn’t put you off. Here are 10 simple green living tips to get you started on your way to being 100% environmentally-friendly.
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Grow Your Own Food
Growing your own food is a great way of living in a sustainable, greenway, and it’s also a lot of fun. As long as you have some space in the garden and the will to succeed in your efforts, you’ll have no trouble growing food.
If you don’t have enough room and still want to grow indoor plants, consider top-notch sheds from companies like Overholt and Sons Shed or other similar firms. This could come in handy if you don’t have a lot of extra space. It could also be used as a storage area for all of your gardening equipment.
You could grow potatoes and vegetables, and then you won’t have to pay high shop prices so often. And there’s nothing more satisfying that eating food that you’ve grown and put a lot of effort into. Kids love doing it too.
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Swap Paper for Digital
The internet and technology are making the need for paper in the home much smaller. We don’t need to pay our bills via the post any longer, for example. Instead, you can do that kind of thing on the internet. And instead of sending letters, we send emails.
If you’re still using lots of paper, you should think about cutting down. All that paper has to come from somewhere and making paper comes at the cost of damaging the environment. If you need to store documents for work, that’s not an excuse either. Store them in the cloud instead!
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Donate to Charity Shops
As a society, we have a bad habit of throwing things away instead of giving them to someone else. But when you throw away an item, they just up in landfill which harms the planet. There might be someone out there who could use it instead.
The best thing to do is donate the stuff you no longer want to a charity shop. This means it won’t end up in landfill, and you will help a charity. So, basically, you’re giving money to a worthwhile cause – what’s not to like?
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Fix Leaky Taps
When we have a leaky tap in the kitchen or bathroom, most of us just ignore it and get on with our lives. It’s something most of us are guilty of. And that’s fair enough, we’re busy people and fixing a tap takes time and effort.
But if you really want to be green and help the planet, you’ll get that tap fixed as quickly as you possibly can. Those little drips and drops might not seem like much, but over the course of a week or a month, you’ll be wasting a lot of water unnecessarily.
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Dry Your Washing on the Line
Yes, the tumble dryer is much more convenient and much quicker, but it also uses lots of energy. So, if you want to cut down on the amount of energy you use, you should definitely think about stopping using it. It might be difficult, but it’s worth it.
There’s no reason why you can’t use the good old-fashioned technique of hanging your washing out on the line. It uses no electricity, so you’ll even save some money in the long-term if you keep it up into the future.
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Use Solar Panels
Renewable energy is something that everyone should be thinking about right now. It’s a way breaking away from your reliance on the big energy companies. Those companies rip us off every year, so it makes perfect sense to produce your own energy.
The best way to produce your own energy is via solar panels. They allow you to use the sun to heat your home. But you don’t have to pay for large panels if you only want to produce a small amount. Bestecoshop sells solar panels that can be attached to your shed to power them.
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Upcycle Unwanted Items
Don’t throw away those items that look like junk. There’s probably something you can do with them to make use of them again. I’m not saying you should hoard all your old junk, but a lot of it can be put to good use. It’s known as upcycling.
A lot of people now make their own furniture in this way. You can take anything and turn it into a chair and sofa if you try hard enough. Some people take old shopping trolleys and turn them into armchairs by cutting them up and adding cushions and upholstery.
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Switch Off Appliances
We tend to leave appliances on all day in our home, but this wastes a lot of electricity. You’ll be shocked by the amount of money you can save by only switching your appliances on when you actually want to use them.
It takes a bit of effort to get used to this because it’s not something that we’re used to. But it’s definitely worth it, so I’d recommend giving it a try.
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Buy Fair Trade
Fair trade food products are good to buy because you can be sure that they have been produced in a sustainable and ethical manner. That’s not something that you can guarantee if you buy foods without the fair trade stamp.
They do tend to cost a little more than other products, but not by much. For people who can afford it, it’s important to support these initiatives that put the producers of food first rather than the companies selling them.
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Make Fewer Car Trips
We all know that burning fuel is bad for the environment, yet we all do it when we get in our cars. By making fewer car trips, you’ll save on petrol and do your bit to help the planet. You’ll also have the chance to walk a lot more and burn calories.
Alternatively, you could splash out and buy yourself an electric-powered car. Then you’ll be able to drive the car as much as you want, completely free of guilt. They’re becoming better with each passing year with the increase in technological power.
If you want to be a bit greener in life, give each of these 10 simple tips a try.