Do you want to live a more eco-friendly lifestyle in 2023? You will need to adopt some simple eco-friendly habits to meet your objectives easily.
Your habits are a reflection of your personality. So, try to build healthy and positive habits that are not only good for you but for all of society. If you make choices that save waste and reduce your footprint, you will join the movement of eco-conscious living.
To develop eco-friendly habits, get back to simplicity and choose a lifestyle that betters your family and the wider community.
Habits To Start For An Eco-Friendly Lifestyle
There are several easy habits you can start for eco-conscious living. In fact, living more sustainably is truly very easy in our modern world.
With the abundance of modern convenience, we are truly a “throw-away” society. This is not only wasteful, but it is also expensive and causes damage to the environment.
Use these expert tips to form habits that will allow an eco-friendly lifestyle. Improve your health, save money, reduce waste in landfill and help our planet!
1. Stop Wasting Food
Recent studies show that nearly 40% of all food is wasted in the USA. This means that 108 billion pounds of food is thrown away every year! These figures equate to around $408 billion and 130 billion meals. Think what that could do for people who can’t afford to feed their families.
This wastage of food occurs at all levels of our society from the farmers to processing plants, supermarkets, consumers and food outlets. Sadly, most of this excess ends up in landfill. If less food was wasted, you would probably see a reduction in the prices of everyday food items.
Before doing your weekly shop, avoid impulse buying by writing a meal plan for the week. This should include all 3 daily meals for the family, plus snacks.
Also, try to do some meal prepping over the weekend. Eco conscious living means using what is available. Try to plan your meals around vegetables and fruits that are in season. Doing this will mean they are super fresh and cheaper.
Another part of an eco-friendly lifestyle is growing produce for yourself. If you live in an apartment or condo, try growing herbs and small vegetables in pots. For larger homes, get a vegetable garden happening and have the whole family involoved. There is little more satisfying than eating what you have grown.
If you have excess from your garden, try preserving it for later. We use this fantastic website for home preserving equipment and tips.
2. Fewer Plastics Is An Eco-Friendly Lifestyle
Plastics are one of the most active components of pollution. They can spoil land, water, and air simultaneously if you do not check their usage.
In many countries of the world, plastic is banned. The reason is it is an indestructible pollutant and takes hundreds of years to break down.
There are many easy ways to reduce your plastic use:
- Take your own shopping bags or a trolley
- Buy a “keep-cup” for coffee
- Have reusable water bottles
- Buy a Soda Stream and make your own sodas
- Use fabric produce bags
- Visit a bulk food store and take containers from home
- Re-use Ziploc bags
3. Eat Less Highly-Processed Foods
Junk foods are more dangerous to your health than alcohol and cigarettes. Reduce the consumption of these food habits as much as possible.
Plant-based foods should form the bulk of any good diet. This is then complimented by carbohydrates, fats, and proteins.
Try to limit foods that have been highly processed. Processing usually removes much of the fiber from whole foods. It also often involves the addition of chemicals for preservation, color, and taste.
As much as you can, be aware of what fuel you are putting into your body.
4. Start Composting For An Eco-Friendly Lifestyle
Composting food scraps is a great way to reduce household waste. Not only that, you can create your own amazing garden fertilizer.
To make the process of composting faster and easier, there are many home composters available. These range from large, outdoor composters to kitchen bench composters.
Of course, with an outdoor composter, you can add garden waste as well. This takes recycling to the next level and keeps nutrients within your garden soil.
An easy tip to remember with composting is to add a variety of materials. This means food scraps from the kitchen, green garden waste (small of course), and also brown material. Think fallen leaves and dried grass clippings.
Adding a variety of materials keeps bugs to a minimum and encourages worm activity. It also reduces the possibility of any bad odors.
5. Buy Second-Hand Clothes
You can buy second-hand clothes instead of new ones. Not only are you saving waste in landfill, but you will also save a lot of money.
It takes a lot of energy and materials to produce new pieces of clothing. Thrift shops, markets, and online sellers have a huge variety of good-quality items.
You can make a regular habit of checking out your local second-hand stores. We find many treasures on our shopping trips and the whole family takes part.
Shoes, toys, books, furniture, and much, much more can be found for a fraction of the new price. Best of all, when you are done, simply take them back to the store for someone else to use.
6. Research Before You Shop
There are many products and stores that use eco-friendly habits to produce their goods. Get online and do some research before you buy.
This is especially true for big-ticket items but also applies to things you buy regularly. Think of re-usable diapers, bamboo toothbrushes, bamboo clothing, and a multitude of other things.
7. Leave The Car At Home For Eco-friendly Lifestyle
Get to places by walking or cycling rather than driving. Even using public transport will help reduce the emission of greenhouse gases.
If you are living in a remote area and need to drive, look to car pool with others. At least you will be using less vehicles and you can save money too.
Make conscious use of resources while you cover the distance from one place to another.
Help save our planet, and get fitter in the process. Leave the car at home as often as possible.
8. Make Conscious Use Of Water
Gone are the days of hosing down our driveways. We now understand that clean water is a precious resource.
With weather patterns changing all over the world, it is important we use water wisely.
Try recycling water from the laundry and bathroom to your garden. There are many grey-water hoses available.
Final Take Away
It really is quite simple to lead an eco-friendly lifestyle. Just start with the easy habits mentioned above.
You can make a huge impact on the environment just by changing some of your daily habits. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing – every little bit helps. And, it’s not as difficult as you might think.
Give some of these eco-friendly habits a try and see how great you feel knowing that you are doing your part to help save our planet.
Do you have any other ideas for living an eco-friendly lifestyle? Leave them in the comments below!
Nosia Simone, a freelance writer. She is loving every bit of it. Her niches are marketing, lifestyle, wellness, travel, and entertainment. Apart from writing, Nosia loves to travel, binge-watch, research conspiracy theories, Instagram, and overthink. Now She is a valuable contributor to famous parenting, true health tips, plus life styles, and voice of action.
