Today marks the 50th anniversary of World Earth Day! To celebrate, Juthy Saha reports how you can make easy changes for a more sustainable lifestyle.
Being environmentally friendly means actively making lifestyle changes that benefit the planet and considering how your choices can help improve the sustainability of the natural world for generations to come! Here are some eco-friendly activities that you can do if you want to have a more enviormentally friendly lifestyle:
1) Gardening: Whether you have your own outdoor garden space or will be creating a green area on your kitchen windowsil, introducing more plants into your space has countless benefits for you and the environment! Not only are plants proven to improve air quality, but they can also help encourage natural wildlife into your garden and counterbalance your carbon footprint.
2) Invest in reusable canvas bags: An easy way to help the environment is to invest in a couple of cheap canvas totes that you can fold away into your bag and use whenever you need to do a food shop! Canvas bags are also a lot sturdier than most plastic bags and often avaliable as a more eco-friendly option at the checkout of most popular supermarkers.
Alternatively, if you still have plastic bags in your cupboard from previous shops, make sure that you take these out with you whenever you need to purchase more food to increase the lifecycle of the bag. And if your bag does break, most supermarkets will allow you to trade in old bags-for-life for new ones and will offer recycling for old plastic bags.
3) Reconsider your travel: Driving and flying are two areas where you can make a real impact on environmentally friendly practices. Choose fuel-efficient travel options, such as using public transport where possible or pooling together with your friends if you’re all making the same journey, will help to lower your carbon footprint. And if the you’re going somewhere local, why not try to ride a bicycle or walking instead of using your car?
4) Reduce your food waste: Did you know that 14% of all food purchased in the UK ends up in the bin? Foodwaste that ends up going to landfil releases a lot of greenhouse gasses as it decays because it is not exposed to enough ocygen to naturally biodrgrade.Â
An easy way to cut food waste is by meal planning for your week ahead! Buying only the food that you need and that has been accounted for in your meal plan will help prevent you from purchasing something which goes forgotten and ends up not being used.Â
5) Eat meat free once a week: Did you know that simply decreasing your meat intake by just one burger a week can result in the same environmental benefit as taking your car off the road for 320 miles (515km)! While going completely vegetarian or vegan may be an daunting prospect for those that regularly eat meat and dairy, swapping to just one vegan day a week is a great way to improve your environmental impact without having to fully commit to a drastic lifestyle change before you’re ready.
- For more tips on how to live a more sustainable life, visit Friends of the Earth
