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- Be less wasteful in your own home
- Air dry clothes
- Buy second hand clothes and appliances
- Wash your recycling
- Reuse food packaging instead of buying tupperware
- Pick up litter
- Adopt don’t shop
- Eat more plant-based food
- Be conscious when you travel
- Waste less food
- Rewild your garden
- Spread the message
- Educate yourself
- Support others that are spreading the message
- Be more conscious in your choices
This is not a post about the end of the Earth; fire and brimstone and that whole palava, it’s about easy ways to help the environment. Preferably before it becomes unfit for human habitation.
The world will be fine. It’s a badass planet. A bit hotter, but when has that ever been a bad thing?
You know how when you have a virus or infection you get a fever? That’s your body’s way of defending itself. Burn that fucker out.
That’s what our own planet is doing to us.
Because we’re v v abusive to our one and only planet and she’s sick to the back teeth of it.
NB: I have no medical experience, bar loving removing (other people’s) splinters. The above analogy may not be true. You know what is true though?
THE EARTH IS GETTING HOTTER.
Now, For all of you UK people out there like me, you might be thinking yessss, I could do with not having wear four pairs of socks to bed in December BUT alas we’ll get colder and more erratic weather, because of the Gulf Stream.
You see, we’re on the same latitude as Russia and the Northern US, where, if you didn’t know, it gets really effing old in winter.
The gulf stream keeps us fairly warm – you’ll need your big coat, but not your ice fishing gear.
Global warming will fuck up the gulf stream, and we’ll be freezing our tits off.
BUT WE CAN REVERSE IT!!
NB: I am not a climate change scientist. I think we can reverse it. I certainly hope so.
We may as well try though. Especially when if we each just do a little bit, it’ll add up.
1. Be less wasteful in the home (do what your mum always said)
You know…
- Shut that door
- Turn off the big light
- Put a jumper/slippers/blanket on
- DON’T FORGET YOUR COAT/BROLLY/CLEAN PANTS
2. Air dry clothes
Tumble dryers are energy FIENDS. We have a mahoosive drying rack from Ikea that we tromp outside when it’s warm, and which lives in the middle of the kitchen in a v inconvenient way the rest of the time.
For a decade I lived in a house with no outside space whatsoever. A clothes horse worked fine.
I don’t care if your towels aren’t fluffy. We’ve bigger fish to fry here. Although don’t use fabric softener on ’em; it has the opposite effect #toptip.
3. Frequent charity shops
Books, clothes, home decor, toys…these can all be found at charity shops for a fraction of the price they’d be new.
It’s a good way to partake in fast fashion without feeling too guilty about it.
Obviously, this is better if you live in a city rather than a rural market town in North Yorkshire where the average age is 73, but swing and roundabouts. We have ace sheep.
4. Wash your recycling
It really really helps with processing. Plz wash it up. Plz. I don’t care if it’s gross.
5. Get creative with Tupperware
We NEVER had Tupperware when I was a kid. Instead, we used (washed) margarine tubs and I used to be mortified that my friends would find out, which is bizarre to me now.
My mum also used to wash and reuse freezer bags. The woman is ahead of her time.
Prophetically (and hilariously) my dad has always been deeply suspicious of single-use plastics, so we never had cotton buds or anything growing up.
6. Pick up litter
You don’t have to go to an organised beach clean – just grab some gloves and a bag and go.
My town actually has a group that goes litter picking, but they go at 9 am on a Sunday and that’s not a time I care to be up and about, so we do our own thing.
Top tip: huff loudly every time you pick litter up and look big and angry. It scares potential litterers into picking up after themselves and may guilt other people into joining in.
7. Adopt don’t shop
There are so many animals in shelters that need homes. All those animals need feeding and cleaning and keeping warm.
8. Eat more plant-based foods
Or, you know, entirely plant-based. that’d be swell.
Animal agriculture has a hellish effect on the environment. 91% of the Amazon’s deforestation is used to graze cattle on. I mean, that’s not good.
9. Be conscious when you travel
Calculate your carbon emissions and try to offset them if you must fly.
Don’t drive if you can walk.
Use public transport if you live somewhere that has more than one bus a day.
I personally don’t fly much (because I don’t have time and am a homebody, not because I’m an eco martyr), but my car is an old diesel, so I can’t exactly point fingers at those that do.
I would implore that you avoid cruises where possible though, because not only are they super polluting but they don’t really put much money into local economies because everything’s all-inclusive.
10. Don’t waste food
When I (finally) got a garden I was excited about getting a compost heap (shut up, I’m cool). I didn’t realise how much I’d end up treating it like a little pet.
I thought you just left it to its own devices, but no! It must be nurtured.
I wanted to buy some worms for it from a fishing tackle shop, but that kind of goes against my adopt don’t shop policy. So instead of worms, I’ve got the billions of woodlice and fruit flies that just rocked up to my compost corner.
When I was a kid my dad used to sometimes let our hens into the compost heap to eat some of the bugs and they freaking loved it. So perhaps if you have some hens they might like a little scrat around the compost heap. Just an idea for a lovely treat for them (and they’ll turn it over brilliantly).
I don’t have much in the way of advice for not wasting cooked food, because I’m a pig and I always clear my plate.
Ooo I have one tip for not wasting vegetables though, although its specific to bunny owners: only buy veg your bunny can eat, so you can feed the bunny the old veg.
And by veg I mean those crap bunches of coriander that wilt after twenty minutes. I have one portion (atop hummus and cherry tomato laden olive bread) and Isobel gets the rest. She also likes spinach, parsley and kale, although she can’t eat a lot of kale because it causes wind and, alas, rabbits can’t burp or fart.
***Btw I have a bunny and a niece, both called Isobel. You can blame my brother if it ever gets confusing; the bunny is nine, the human child is only six***
Is that 10?
Are we done?
Nah, let’s have a few more.
11 – Rewild your garden
This sounds hard, but it’s not. In fact, you could completely leave your garden to go totally wild and the local flora and fauna would love you for it.
It doesn’t look great though…
If you’re interested in learning how to create a beautiful, eco-friendly garden on a budget, then check out this post.
12 – Spread the message
Help your family re-wild their garden, or even just buy them some birdseed. Buy friend’s hedgehog houses as gifts, along with a couple of sachets of cat food. You don’t need to be preachy or weird to help educate others on how to help the environment.
13 – Educate yourself
Don’t allow yourself to get caught up in a particular way of thinking without researching it first. At first glance, palm oil is the antichrist, but delve a little further (as I did here) and you’ll find that it’s one of the better choices available to us (as long as sustainability is kept in mind).
14 – Support people who promote environmental issues
If you don’t fancy going out with a placard and walking in a climate change, that’s fine, but support people who do. Follow their Instagram, watch their YouTube, donate to their Patreon if you’re able to.
15 – Make more conscious choices
I’m trying to get better at this. Better at remembering to take my water bottle when I go out, reducing impulse buying, and double-checking that products like makeup and skincare are vegan.
It takes time and practice, but I have plenty of the former and I’m willing to work on the latter.
They were all easy though, weren’t they? We can all get on board with these things?
There are a few others that I’ll just slip in the bottom (hoho) that are mentioned all over the internet, but I don’t want you to think I’m not aware of them.
- STOP BUYING DISPOSABLE COFFEE CUPS. BRING YOUR OWN. Or drink your coffee inside in a cup like a civilised human.
- SEE ALSO: WATER BOTTLES. Take a flask, like you had when you were seven for your squash.
- Period cups are also much less wasteful than tampons or pads but erm, I stockpiled Always Ultra back when I toyed with being a doomsday prepper (well, not quite, but I had a LOT of toothpaste, toilet roll, and tinned tomatoes).
- Have fewer children. But I would say that – kids are gross.
- Pick the single bananas in the supermarket. I read somewhere that they’re the most thrown out item in the store. And now I feel like I must google ‘single bananas‘ to find that information for you. Lord help me.
That wasn’t too bad actually, just a lot of Elite Singles sponsored posts and this gem of an article about some poor woman being charged £930.11 for a single banana.
If you’re a smoothie person, freeze your bananas. Go to the shops, buy all the lonely bananas, peel, chop and pop in the freezer. They make your smoothies v creamy. You’re welcome.
If anyone has any other ideas for easy ways to help the environment then be a love and leave a comment. Thanks so much!
Final thoughts on easy ways to help the environment
You don’t have to do all of these things. Just a few.
I can’t get away with menstrual cups. I use disposable razors. I use microwaveable rice.
But I haven’t been on a plane in years, I don’t have kids, and even my pets are plant-based (rabbits).
Just imagine if everyone did something.