Blogtober Day 30 : 7 Easy Ways We Can All Reduce Our Carbon Footprint

Disclaimer:  I haven't been paid to recommend any products or stores, I'm just sharing what we've learned so far on our journey to a more sustainable life, hugs x

 Hi Honeys,

How are you today? All well I hope and staying warm. It's downright chilly today so our furbaby Jade and I are settled on the sofa, one of my favourite Cary Grant movies is on TV right now (Penny Serenade) and we're not moving, you can't make us 😊  

It's the nearly last day of this year's Blogtober honeys, how did this month go by so fast? Actually, this whole year has been a blur really.  I'm just praying for this awful virus to disappear and for the world to be normal again.  

Our recent experience with really obscenely excessive packaging has had me thinking and looking a little closer at how we live and trying to find any little tweaks that might make (even a little) difference.  We really do try our best to avoid being wasteful.  

Earlier this week I shared six actually very delicious ways to use stale bread and ripe bananas and today I thought we'd look at seven tiny changes we can all make to lower the impact we're having on the world around us.  

This turned into quite a long (although I hope interesting) post honeys so it might be good if you go fetch a cuppa (and maybe a cookie or two?) and I'll meet you back here in a few minutes?  See you after the page break...

Welcome back, do you have your cuppa?  Cool, me too ☕ Why don't you get comfy then, put your feet up and let's dive in...

7 Easy Ways We Can All Reduce Our Carbon Footprint... 

1. Take your lunch to work with you:

Such a simple thing honeys and yet it makes such a huge impact, not only on the world around us but on our wallets too. Let's take a look shall we? 

Sandwiches: You wouldn't think that a little sandwich would matter, but think how much packaging has to be produced to wrap all of the sandwiches, snack pots and all of the other processed lunch choices that line the shelves in shops every day.  Now think of the impact on that mountain of packaging if everyone made their sandwiches at home and took them to work with them.  Another bonus is that you'll save money too. How much does your lunch sandwich really cost?  

You can easily avoid using plastic wrap or plastic sandwich bags by using a piece of reusable beeswax wrap. I bought ours on Amazon but you can easily make it too honeys.  There are tutorials all over Pinterest. Having tried them, I'm planning to try to make my own now too 😊  

Coffee: Why pay so much for a coffee every day on your way to work, or at lunchtime, when you can easily make your own - just as you like it- and take it with you in a travel mug?  Want another cup at lunchtime? Keep a small jar of your favourite blend in your desk at work and off you go to the kitchen with your coffee and your mug.  As with bringing your own lunch, the money saved can be surprising.  

Say you buy even a single coffee every day, on the way to work, this would cost around £2.50? So five coffees a week, Monday to Friday, could cost you around £12.50.  Taking this further, in a four week month that could be costing £50! So in a year you're spending around £600 for a single coffee every morning.  

Far better, for your wallet and for the environment, to invest in a thermal travel mug.  I have a bamboo one that is pretty fabulous 💖 

Why not meal prep? Why not spend an hour or so on a Sunday to wash and prepare lovely, fresh salads (when in season) for the whole week ahead and load up your fridge with this yummy goodness ready to grab each morning on the way to work? The salads have been replaced now with more warming dishes (you can still buy salad things of course but look at how far they've travelled to get here) but I can't wait till it's locally grown salad time again 💖

The dangers of microwaving food in plastic

I've always tried to make sure Hubby goes to work every day with a proper lunch honeys. This could be lasagne, baked potato & cheese, just a healthy lunch that will keep him "ticking over" till he gets home and has his dinner at night.  They have a microwave in the break room at his office, which is a great help with this. 

Then, some time ago, I read about the dangers of chemicals leeching into foods from plastic containers when they were microwaved!  This was early in our journey towards living a more sustainable life and I was horrified.  I researched online and found other alternatives for Hubby's lunch and settled on the glass dishes in the photo above.  You can see the post here.  I'm not being paid to promote these dishes, but after using them for over a year, to bake with, for lunches and in the freezer, I wouldn't be without them 💗 

Why not get into the habit of making a little extra when you cook dinner? This can then be taken with you for lunch the next day.  Even better, why not make double when you cook?  Having lasagne? Make two, have one for dinner and freeze the other one.  It's economical with fuel and you'll have a fuss free dinner one evening when you might have less time to cook.  

2. Say no to plastic when shopping:

Thankfully, more and more people are bringing their own reusable shopping bags and totes with them when shopping honeys. As a child we never had plastic bags at home but over the years single use plastic bags became the norm and have done so much damage.  

There is so much more we can all do though than bring our shopping bags to the shops honeys.  They're only small things, tiny really, but they all add up, and if we all do them, can you imagine? 

Leave the packaging in the shop.  

As soon as our shopping gets home, it gets decanted into it's storage tubs/containers and the packaging goes straight into the recycling bin, but did you know you can take the bag of cereal out of the box and leave the cardboard in the store?  Imagine what message this would send to companies about their packaging, and how we, as consumers, want to see less of it? 

Buy your fruit and vegetables loose. 

Often, buying produce loose can be cheaper than buying it in packs.  Because you'll only buy what you need, there will be less uneaten, and so there will be less wasted food.  You'll be able to choose each item so no more getting home to find one apple in the pack has to be binned already. 

Why not take your own produce bags to the store with you?  We love these reusable produce bags...

Fruit and vegetables can be packed in them, weighed in the bag at checkout, taken home and even washed in the bag! I fill the bowl in the sink with warm water and add 2-3 cap fulls of white vinegar then soak the fruit and vegetables for around 10-15 minutes, before rinsing well under cold water.  You'll be amazed at the colour of the water and you'll have the cleanest produce.  It'll last longer too, and don't worry, you won't taste any vinegar. 

Buying clothes? Leave the hangers in the store.

Those plastic hangers seem to multiply the minute you close the wardrobe doors honeys, I swear! Or maybe it just feels that way 😊  They're a nuisance. They break too easily and every checkout in the huge store where I work has a designated bin under the checkouts for them.  Customers are usually asked if they'd like to take them home. 

Unwanted hangers go into the bins and are then recycled by being used again. This saves the store from buying more hangers, it saves more hangers being made from that nasty, breaks-too-easily plastic and we don't take home hangers that attack us by jumping off the rails when you open the door of our wardrobe 😊    

3. Ditch the plastic containers in the fridge too:

I'm not saying head straight to the kitchen right this minute and bin all of your Tupperware. That would be ridiculously wasteful and if it isn't recyclable it would go straight to landfill!  When standing in the shop though, looking at replacements when the time comes, just a tiny bit of thought can make the world of a difference. 

We choose to go with glass dishes for leftovers and other items stored in the fridge as well as to use for Hubby's lunch each day, and they are so good we also use them for cooking, baking, freezing... let's just say they were a worthy investment because they're used constantly.  Not everyone is comfortable using glass dishes for lunches though, especially when smaller children are around, in case they break or when sending lunches to school with wee ones. Again there are lots of alternatives other than plastic. 

Why not use bamboo? Products made from bamboo are increasingly popular right now and there are so many beautiful designs on bamboo lunchboxes, travel mugs (I adore mine) and storage containers too. There are choices honeys and as consumers we have more power than you'd think.    

4. Recycle as if it's your job:

I think I might have discovered the secret to recycling a while ago 😊  The secret to always be recycling and to never, ever not do it, is to make it so easy, so effortless, that you do it because it's easier than not doing it.  I even wrote a post about it 💖  

Recycle all of your cardboard and paper honeys.  If it's letters, bills or has personal information, don't just put it into the recycle bin, shred it with a cross cut shredder first and then empty the shredder bin into a recyclable (such as paper) bag and add a staple to keep it from opening when your recycle bin is emptied (or the refuse men will get a fright and your street will look as if there's been a wedding with all of the scattered tiny squares of paper 😊)  

For food waste, why not get yourself a little food composting bin?  Call your local authority or Council, chances are they already supply them and arrange a pick up too.  We were all supplied with a small bin by the local council a few years ago, although when they gave them to us we already had ours, so the tiny brown bin they gave us is still sitting by the back door and Jade has her tennis balls in it to grab when she goes out into the garden 💖

We've had our tiny green food bin since early 2015 and I can't imagine being without it. It has a "clickable" locking lid, a sturdy handle to carry it outside to empty it (although we do use liners) and it's not too big, so it sits happily by our sink in the kitchen.  

If I peel potatoes, the peels go straight into the bin when I'm done. Same with vegetables. When I'm baking, the egg shells go in there too and with a "click" the lid snaps closed.  The bin is emptied every second day or whenever it needs to be emptied. 

When you can, try to leave plastic packaging in the store.

As I showed above, we use our reusable produce bags to buy loose fruit and vegetables so no pre-packed apples and such for us, but it's not always easy to avoid plastic packaging unfortunately. 

By checking the base of yogurt cartons and other plastic containers, you can see when they are able to be recycled. You'll find an excellent guide to the numbers on plastic items, what they're made of and can be recycled into at the Good Housekeeping site here honeys.      

If you do find yourself left with packaging that can't be recycled, why not try to find another use for it instead of putting it into the general waste bin where it will end up in landfill?  Why not decorate them and re-use as plant pots, or donate small pots to a local school to use as paint pots for arts and crafts classes? 

  

5. Use rechargeable batteries:

This one is easy.  Even a cursory look around your home will show you that you own many more items powered by batteries than you would think.  Remote controls, controllers for games systems, clocks, children's toys, the list is endless.  

I wouldn't be surprised if every Christmas there are almost as many batteries sold as there are toys, but to use single use, throwaway batteries is just such a waste!  Using re-chargeable batteries will save money over time and saves so many single use batteries being produced in the first place. 

Rechargeable batters also wear out of course.  Depending on the type and what it's powering, a rechargeable battery will last between two to seven years and when they eventually stop charging should be taken to a recycling facility.  Local Councils run these and you'll find their number in the phone book. 

If you do use single use batteries, please don't put them into the bin, they have elements which can be recycled and you'll find many larger shops have special bins to drop them into where they'll be processed and disposed of carefully without ever going to landfill. 

 

6. Use long life led light bulbs:   

With most of us having to pay sky high fuel bills these days, it makes sense to use energy saving bulbs, such as long life led bulbs.  Aside from saving us money and energy, over time, they are kinder to our environment too, so long as they are disposed of properly. 

Again this will mean a trip to the local recycling facility, run by the local Council. These places are marvellous, having a designated place to recycle almost anything you can imagine.  We have a wonderful one that we go to, it's endlessly fascinating to me 😊  

One of the reasons that LED bulbs have become so popular is because they can last so much longer than incandescent bulbs, which usually have a life of around 1000 hours use.  It's possible that an LED bulb can last for 50,000 hours!  To put that into context, if an LED bulb was to be used for around 8 hours a day, it could have a life of over 17 years!  

LED bulbs don't contain mercury either, unlike the CFL (compact florescent bulbs) bulbs.  I can remember being very nervous years ago when the oddly shaped tube like bulbs appeared in the shops and hearing that we shouldn't touch them directly, to use a cloth to fit them to a light fitting because they contain mercury.  Still not sure if this was true or just something said on TV but I've never been fond of them.  

So with it's longer life and energy (and planet) saving potential, it's no wonder LED bulbs have become so popular.  You can find an interesting page on LED bulbs here if you'd like to know more honeys.

7. Stop buying paper kitchen products:

This is such an easy swap.  Most things you do in your kitchen can be achieved using reusable cloths. My favourites, forever and a day, will be micro fibre squares...

They clean, they wipe up spills, they do everything that paper kitchen products used to do without the waste. No trees will be sacrificed to clean our counters honeys.  The best thing is that they last so, so long! We still have our earliest set, still in use and still going strong, from over 10 years ago! Now, how much paper has been saved in that time just in our little home 💖   

Let's recycle, reuse and make our feelings known to the companies who fill the shelves of our shops. Let's show them that we're happy to bring our own produce bags and don't need their pre-packed apples.  Let's show them, by the choices we make as consumers that we care about the world we live in.  That's how we can help our little planet heal.  After all, we only have this one, let's look after it. 

There are so many other ways to make a difference.  Turn the thermostat down, even by a single degree.  You probably won't even notice the difference. Take the stairs, take quicker showers, wait until you have a full load of laundry to run a wash cycle.  All such tiny changes but, overtime, it all adds up. 

Over to you then, what have I missed? What are your suggestions to lower our impact on our wee planet? Till next time dear ones, stay warm and safe, hugs xx