Being eco-friendly, friendlier to the environment and more sustainable in our every day life is something we’ve been trying to improve as a household for months now. I’ve found a few tips, tricks and products that have really been helping us keep on top of this and wanted to share some of my favourites.
1. Plastic-free wipes
Remember that fat-berg (ew) blocking the River Thames that was basically just millions of horrible plastic baby wipes that we’d all flushed down the toilet? Grim, right? And horrible for the environment. If I have to use face wipes, and let’s be honest, they are so easy when you’re tired to get rid of makeup and grime, I’ll use Yes To Tomatoes bio-degradable face wipes. These wipes are 0% plastic and will biodegrade when you put them in the bin. We shouldn’t flush these either but at least if you forget, they’ll degrade over time and not block up our rivers and seas.
2. Re-usable coffee cup
A classic and maybe a cliche but with the Stojo collapsible coffee cup it’s so easy to cut out disposable cups. I’ve tried standard stay-the-same-size all the time cups and they just get in the way, I can’t fit them in my bag all the time and they’re just a bit more of a ball ache than these little guys. Stojo cups collapse to literally half their size and it means I can keep mine in my handbag and I’m less likely to forget it and have to either not get a coffee or grab a disposable cup. I picked mine up from an Oliver Bonas store but you can pick them up from John Lewis and loads of other department stores and online.
3. Re-usable water bottle
In exactly the same vein as the above, I try to always have my re-usable bottle with me when I’m out and about to avoid buying single use plastics. I’ve definitely cut down the amount of SUPs I’ve been buying over the past year or so and the Chilly’s water bottles are super stylish and actually keep your water cold. So many places these days will just fill up your water bottle for you, you just have to ask!
4. Bye-bye cling film
I’m not going to say I’ll never use cling film or foil again because I’m sure I’ll have to but more often than not I try to wrap and store sandwiches/leftovers in my Beeswax wraps or reusable Tupperware. They’re not sticky, they’re super easy to clean and look cute too. I try and take my lunch to work from home 4 out of 5 days at least to stop me buying lunch a) because it’s expensive and not buying a £3.50 meal deal helps me save money and b) I’m not buying plastic-wrapped sandwiches or salads and SUP drinks bottles.
5. Fresher for longer
Nope, not a deodorant advert – keeping food from going off is a great way to lower the amount of food that you could possibly waste. Food waste is a bit pet peeve of mine, I hate throwing things out and I’m the queen of a random pasta based tea with whatever’s left in the fridge! But, salad, spinach and fresh herbs and other things like that kept going brown too early which is why I invested in some Klippits – these are essential to keep food fresher for longer! Also, if you chuck any raw meat, fish or bread into the freezer they’ll keep for three months if you know you’re not going to finish it all before they could go off.
Another thing that helps me waste less and be a bit more environmentally friendly has been reducing my meat intake – we rarely cook meat in the house these days. We used to eat meat for dinner almost every night and some weeks we can go a full week with no meat in the house at all. I’m still a meat eater and I won’t give up fish but we’ve definitely cut down. Finally, I’ve stopped buying books which is helping me to acquire less stuff – therefore I’ll have less to recycle/chuck out when I’m done with the items because I didn’t buy them in the first place! I’ll either borrow a book, get it out of the library or grab it on my iBooks or Kindle.
What are you doing to shop less or be more environmentally friendly in your everyday life? I wrote about being more sustainable with my fashion previously and I’m still trying to stick to this as much as I possibly can!
This post includes affiliate links.
