How to Honor Earth Day Every Day

In honor of Earth Day today, I want to share a couple of tips I’ve introduced into my lifestyle to reduce my overall waste…..

Avoid Single Use Plastic:

Try to say NO to single use cups, plastics bags, plastics bottles, plastic straws, disposable cutlery, disposable food packaging and plastic toothbrushes. There is more on the list but if you can start here, you’ll make a big difference. If the list seems overwhelming, try to eliminate single use plastic items over time. It’s going to seem like a harder and more daunting task if you try to tackle this all at once. Over the past year and a half, I’ve slowly eliminated single used cups, plastic bags, plastics bottles and disposable cutlery. It’s taken some time to fully adjust into this routine but as humans and creatures of habit, it’s become really easy.

How do I do this?

Use my stainless steel water bottle and bring it with me everywhere, so I can say NO to water bottles
Invest in a reusable mug for tea on the go and bring in a mug from home to use at work (note: easily wash it at work every day)
Use my glass Tupperware, utensils and plates & bowls from home for breakfast and lunch at work or if I’m traveling
Grocery shop with my reusable shopping bags and avoid using produce plastic bags (note: don’t be afraid to stick produce in your bag – you can wash them well when you get home!)

What I need to work on and how?

Avoid disposable food packaging by not getting the product all together, asking to take it out and use your own bag/ or if you do buy it, recycle the packaging
Stop using plastic toothbrushes by buying a bamboo toothbrush (100% compostable)

Recycle & Compost

Recycling might seem like a no brainier and an easy thing to do but you’d be surprised by the amount of people who still don’t. One of the biggest reasons is because of inconvenience or lack of space. For instance, growing up my parents had their recycling bin in the garage, so it always seemed like a pain to have to walk farther and into a different room to recycle. We would get lazy and just throw everything in the trash. Make recycling easy and convenient for your kitchen space and just make it work for you. Another lifestyle change is to compost- this one is a bit tougher to incorporate in to your day to day routine and I’m guilty of not doing it. A lot of the reasons why people don’t is because of the work and lack of education on it. Here’s a great article on composting and how easy it can be even if you live in a city.

How do I do this?

I have the recycling bin right next to my trash and it’s the same sized bin as our trash ( I wish we could get a bigger one!) – it’s in a convenient spot, so we make recycling easy as it can be
Luckily, recycling bins are now at offices where I work and available in almost every public area, restaurants, events, etc.
If there isn’t a recycling bin near by, I save it until I find the nearest one

What I need to work on and how?

Use brown bags for compost and freeze bags in our freezer, so the smell and attraction of bugs stops us from composting
Since I live in a city and am renting, find a local waste company to take my compost or use a local composting company, Bootstrap Compost

Shop Secondhand:

As someone who’s on a conscious journey and blogs about it, shopping secondhand comes easily. However, it wasn’t always the case as this type of lifestyle is still fairly new to me. It wasn’t alarming until I watched the documentary The True Cost and truly learned that the clothing industry is the second most pulluting industry. An average Americans throws away approximately 80 pounds of used clothing per person. I plan to reduce that by buying fewer and better clothing that lasts a long time. AND by buying secondhand so the piece of clothing gets another home instead of a landfill.

How do I do this?

Shop secondhand at local consignment shops or online through ThredUp or Poshmark
Shop secondhand and vintage items on Etsy such as Bumblebuck

As you can see, there are many ways we can incorporate waste reduction in our daily lives (& even more!) to help the pollution on this planet. Everything takes time, but small changes will make a big difference in the long run. I hope that you spent Earth Day outside as it was a beautiful day here in Massachusetts (finally!) and you got to see how wonderful Mother Earth really is!