Posted on: 29 July, 2020

7 Ways to Improve Your Environmental Health Today

Do you often question whether your environmental awareness is the best it can be? Anyone can make small changes to their everyday life - they don’t need to cost much money, or indeed take too much of your time.

Do you often question whether your environmental awareness is the best it can be?

Fortunately, there are many lifestyle changes we can all adopt to become more environmentally aware, and reduce our impact on the world.

In this post, you’ll discover how you can make simple, yet effective changes to your daily life that will improve your environmental awareness.

Around 8 million tonnes of plastic are released into the oceans every year from coastal nations, according to National Geographic.

That’s a staggering statistic, but it’s not just plastic consumption that remains an issue today.

Anyone can make small changes to their everyday life – they don’t need to cost much money, or indeed take too much of your time.

So, how can you start living more sustainably today?

Do Some DIY

One of the most effective ways we can reduce our impact on the world is by consuming less. Many of the items we purchase on a weekly or monthly basis aren’t actually necessary – and, in fact, most of them can be made at home in a more sustainable way.

Take, for example, the household cleaning products and beauty products many of us re-purchase monthly. Not only does this become expensive over the course of a year, but many of your products are likely to contain chemicals and ingredients that can be harmful to our natural surroundings.

By making your own alternatives, you can be consciously aware of what it is you’re using. From essential oils to vinegars, citrus fruits and bicarbonate of soda, there are many household items that can be used to make efficient, eco-friendly cleaning products.

And if you’re wondering just how you can achieve this at home, you’ll be able to access hundreds of natural DIY recipes and tutorials online that can help you get started.

Grow Your Own Vegetables

One of the most common, yet easily rectifiable ways many of us are damaging the environment is by purchasing foods that have originated overseas. By doing so, we’re increasing the demand of unnecessary air miles – significantly adding to our individual carbon footprint.

An easy lifestyle change we can all adopt is buying our groceries locally, for example from the local farmer’s market. Not only does this show our support for local businesses, but we’ll also be making the best use of locally grown produce.

Alternatively, you could set up your own vegetable patch at home. Nurturing and growing your own produce is great for mental health – and, in fact, homegrown vegetables taste far fresher than those you find in supermarkets.

Take a look at our previous article to discover how you can grow your own produce at home.

Avoid Fast Fashion

So many of our high-street and online clothing/homeware stores sell cheaply made products that we may keep for a year at most, before we decide to replace them.

Fast fashion is a quick way to load the planet with unnecessary waste. Impulse buying, too, often leads us to obtain items that we don’t actually need – many of which also end up on landfill sites.

To combat this, we can try to take a ‘quality over quantity’ approach to shopping. Rather than purchasing more items at a cheaper price, it’s far more environmentally friendly to save up for one high-quality item that you know will last you for years.

We can change our shopping habits, too, to better serve the environment. Before you go shopping, take a little time to think about what you really need. In a similar vein, it’s often good practise to walk away from an item you’re thinking of purchasing and giving yourself time to really think about it.

Shift to Reusable Items

As a nation, we’ve been making efforts to shift away from single-use, plastic items for a number of years. We’ve seen a reduction in the use of plastic straws, plastic bags and plastic/cardboard coffee cups.

One of the best ways we can look after our surroundings is by keeping this up for the long-term. Always remembering to take our reusable shopping bags to the supermarket, for example, will make a huge difference. And similarly, banishing the use of paper plates/cups from all birthday parties moving forward will save tonnes of waste over a lifetime.

And if you haven’t yet purchased a reusable coffee cup/flask, there’s no better time to do it.

Maximise Your Natural Lighting

Whilst artificial lighting has brought so many opportunities to our modern day world, its effect on the environment has certainly never remained a positive one.

Turning lights off when we leave a room can, of course, help, but there are other ways we can cut our energy bills.

During the daytime your best to maximise your natural lighting. Open all of your curtains/blinds fully, and if you’re about to turn on a lamp/overhead light, think about whether you really need it.

If you can work with battery powered ambient lighting for a while as the sun starts to set, that will save hours of electrical lighting use over the course of a few months.

Become Au Fait with Technology

As technology takes over the business world, we are seeing less and less offices packed with paperwork and folders. As we become more and more accustomed to managing our mail online and storing documents in a password-protected safe place, the demand for paper printing is most definitely diminishing.

Whilst this shift is still ongoing, its effects on the environment are well worth the efforts. This is something we can adopt within our own homes, too. Rather than having your mail delivered to your door, try setting up your own email account (if you haven’t already), and you’ll save tonnes of paper that way.

Try Sustainable Gifting Options

Some of us only give gifts to others a few times a year. As a result, we may become a bit lax in our efforts to do so sustainably.

However, gifting materials can contain highly harmful materials, such as glitter and microplastics; both of which can be detrimental to aquatic life.

Next time you’re wrapping a present for your loved one, try using recycled materials paired with dried/pressed flowers/herbs and some tweed for a rustic aesthetic. Avoid purchasing non-recyclable items, too, and reuse gift bags wherever you can.

Increasing our environmental awareness really comes down to the small changes we make in our everyday lives. What’s the first change you’re going to make today?

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