We are young, free and educated, living in modern times of technology, economic success and opportunities. However, we tend to forget that there is something left in the background, often neglected by many – nature. The planet Earth is our home, our source of natural goods and our place “to be” and flourish. If our home is dying, we will suffer, too. Unfortunately, big corporations and careless individuals who are unaware of the climate change and the pollution agenda or who simply do not care as much about it, contribute to the issues that our planet is facing.
This is a huge problem that we must overcome soon, otherwise the outcomes will be irreversible. But how can we oppose this negative trend? How can we contribute to Earth’s well-being? Those eco-friendly tips are incredibly easy to follow but will make such a big difference, check them out!
Try minimizing your waste as much as possible
Is your trashcan constantly full of plastic packages, bottles and unrecyclable waste? Come on, you can do better! Try buying items in recycled packages, buy your fruits and veggies in reusable nets, use a separate trashcan for each type of waste, use canvas Bags instead of plastic ones, research more about recycling in general and do your best in order to maintain a smaller amount of waste.
Turn off electronics you’re not using at the moment
You like the background noise coming from the TV in the living room while you’re cooking in the kitchen? If you are not using it, why keeping it on? Also, keeping your phone on charger hours after it reached 100% is not only extra usage of electricity but it is also dangerous for your phone’s battery, lessening its life. Be eco-friendly, use electricity smartly and know when you have to turn things off.
Start planting birthday trees or buy some plants
What kind of a better present is out there than a whole personal tree? Not only it’s yours for a lifetime but it is beautiful and it reduces the carbon footprint, helping the nature to recover. If you plant a tree for every birthday you have and if we consider that you start doing it when you’re 20 years old, by the time you hit your 85th trip around the Sun there will be 65 trees living in your honor, symbolizing the beauty and stability of your journey on this planet. Moreover, your grandchildren will breath cleaner air thanks to you! Doesn’t it sound like a win-win?
If you aren’t into such things, the best you can do is having as many plants as possible. Ikea has a wide selection of houseplants which are waiting for their “parent” to get them and take care of them. In return, they will be beautiful, they will filter the air in your room and boost your mood. Everything feels so much better with a couple of plants around!
Avoid buying fast fashion clothes
Maybe you’ve never considered this as a kind of waste, but actually the fashion industry produces 10% of all humanity's carbon emissions, it’s the second-largest consumer of the world's water supply, and pollutes the oceans with microplastics. Sounds bad, right? And even worse, the more we consume fast fashion (Forever 21, H&M, etc.), the more we pollute our planet. But this is not the end: after wearing a piece of clothing for some months, most people tend to throw it away as it is not so trendy anymore, it doesn’t fit them or the quality of it is already ruined (that is why we call it “fast fashion”).
How do we break this endless cycle of pollution? There are several things you can do:
Buying clothes less often.
Buying clothes from second-hand shops.
Making old clothes trendy with DIY touch-ups.
Giving your old clothes to charities, instead of throwing them.
Take coffee/tea from home or use a refillable cup/thermos
We all know the struggle – university is going on with full force, but we are not. When low on energy, we immediately run to the nearest cafeteria and buy the sacred drink, then throw what’s left away. But if you do that every single day, don’t you think it would hurt the planet? All that plastic and paper you throw away on a daily basis, that’s a lot of trash. On the contrary, bringing your own coffee (or tea) from home is not only money-saving but eco-friendly, too. However, if you insist on drinking coffee from a certain place every day you can always carry a refillable cup with yourself and ask the barista to pour your beverage in it, instead of using a plastic cup.
Turn off the tap and take shorter showers
You’re a university student so let’s just agree that you’re always in a rush – a shorter shower won’t just save water but it might save you from being late, too. Trust us, the amount of water you’d save with just 5 minutes less showering would be incredible when you put it in a perspective – 35 minutes a week if you shower daily! If we consider a 7 liters per minute flow rate (on average) it turns out that you’ve just saved 245 liters of water for the past 7 days.
Same goes to the tap – turn it off while brushing your teeth or washing your face, that’s just wasted water!
DIY stuff
Yes, for real, make that DYI you’ve been thinking about lately. Life is too short not to be creative and it is also essential that we are eco-friendly in the meantime. DIYs make us use unwanted items, creating something brand new, beautiful and useful out of random stuff that could’ve ended up in the bin. You just recycled, yay!
Print school materials as little as possible
Moodle is the place where you can find all the necessary materials, you can basically study for exams right from your personal computer or laptop. It is easier, better, eco and it is part of our future of paperless studying and working. If printing out something is a requirement you must follow it and print it, but printing for the sake of beautiful notes or something similar is just a bitter joke if you think of all the trees which got cut because of our needs. Same goes to taking notes – just bring your laptop in class.
Don’t litter
As ridiculous as it might seem to some of our readers, people who randomly throw their trash on the street are all over the place. If you’re one of them, you should definitely stop. It’s uncivilized, it’s damaging the environment and it makes the city streets look ugly. Trashcans are literally everywhere around, please, do it out of decency.
Minimalism is trendy
Welcome to the future where less is more! Minimalism is trendy, so give it a chance – don’t overstuff your room with random items, buy less clothes but more quality ones and wear them for longer periods of time, rely on simple design and packaging and so on. Buying less means wasting less, making you more aware in these matters.
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