A lot of people often get daunted about the idea of sustainable living, perhaps mostly because of the many changes that might have to come in the process. After all, it’s not easy shifting to a lifestyle that prioritizes the environment, when we’ve most likely lived prioritizing our work or our time with family and friends.
Thankfully, it’s not too late to change to a more sustainable lifestyle, and it’s not as hard as we think it can be.
Here are some handy tips we can use if we want to make a smooth transition into a more sustainable life.
Simplify your living
One of the best ways to achieve a sustainable lifestyle is to simplify a lot of elements in your life. For instance, try not to accumulate a lot of waste or belongings you won’t be using in a long time. Try to reduce what you own and instead keep a few usable belongings on your end that you can maximize. This is advantageous as well, especially if you have a moving company with you, as you can lessen moving costs.
See whether your house needs renovation
This might imply having to spend a bit to have a sustainable household, but this is a genuine point of consideration. Try to see whether you can optimize your household to accommodate a sustainable lifestyle. For instance, if you live in a tropical country, you can incorporate bigger windows and lighter color walls into your house to keep cold air in instead of using air conditioning. If you live in a cold country, you can try to opt for an insulated household instead of relying heavily on a thermostat. This can be a bit costly at first, but this is a worthy investment.
Avoid using a car and commute instead
Try to assess where you live, where you study, and where you work. Chances are there’s more than enough ways to traverse these areas aside from using your private car. Whenever possible, try to find ways to commute and even walk to locations near you in order to help avoid and lessen emissions. When you walk and find ways to commute, you even increase your physical activity and you can get more fit and healthy.
Save and collect water
Try to buy a rainwater tank to ensure you have a means of saving rainwater for emergencies. If you don’t have a rainwater tank, you can put containers around your house to collect rainwater, so you always have usable water for washing dishes, watering plants, or even washing your clothes. You can also do shorter showers or even use your shower water to wash your clothes as well. This can greatly reduce your water bill in the long run, so the water you can focus on buying would be drinkable water.
Reuse clothes as much as possible
See whether you always have to put your used clothes in the dirty laundry immediately after use, or if you can reuse your clothes for more than a few days. This not only saves detergent and water but also costs in terms of laundry.
Try to go electronic for your papers and transactions
Instead of keeping physical records and paying for your bills over the counter, why not opt for electronic transactions and documents? Almost all sorts of bills - from utilities to food - can be paid via credit card, online currencies, and other online payment means. If you handle your finances well, you can pay for your bills through your credit card via electronic transactions. Some companies may even give you discounts for going paperless. You can also start scanning physical documents so you always have electronic copies with you, and you can start relying on the cloud to store your documents so you don’t have to keep all your records at home.
Seek professional help with sustainable working methods
If you have certain things to do that may require professional assistance, try to hire professionals with sustainable working methods. For instance, you can hire long-distance movers if you’re in the process of a house move. However, you can also check whether your movers apply sustainable methods to their work as well. Do they have protocols to make their moving methods and strategies less wasteful? Or if you’re hiring other companies to do certain services, do they have green strategies to do these tasks as well?
Sustainable living: it takes adjustment, planning, hard work
It helps to remember that sustainable living, as with all lifestyles, takes time and practice to get used to. And like with other forms of lifestyles, there’s no guarantee that adopting one form of sustainable living can be “fit” for you and your family. With the above tips, you can hopefully find the right kind and combination of sustainable living habits in order to develop and cultivate a more sustainable household. And remember, if you plan on adopting sustainable habits, you can always mix, match, and modify these habits to your needs.
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