5 Practical Things You Can Do To Practice Sustainability In Your Life
For World Sustainability Day, we're letting you in on practices you can try incorporating into your life—and we don't just mean swapping plastic for paper!
Sustainability. It's more than just a buzzword. It's a way of life. The question is: have you adopted this way of life already? Or are you just getting curious about how to do it? No judgment here—we know that it's quite difficult to let go of old ways, so we're here to encourage you that little steps make for big ones, and the first step will eventually lead you to a sustainable lifestyle.
What is sustainability anyway? According to youmatter, "sustainability is usually defined as the processes and actions through which humankind avoids the depletion of natural resources, in order to keep an ecological balance that doesn’t allow the quality of life of modern societies to decrease." This leads us to think—what practices in our lives contribute to the continuous depletion of natural resources?
Have we been over-buying and under-using? Have we been mindless about our usage of plastic waste? Do we always opt to consumer more and more without thoughtfully thinking about what we already have? We may have grown accustomed to certain ways of doing things, but there is always room for change and improvement.
Today, on World Sustainability Day, we'd like to be part of the encouragement, and share with you simple, practical ways on how you can incorporate sustainable practices in your life. And no, we're not expecting you to be a warrior for Mother Earth overnight—the goal is to start small, and start simple, doable actions that will eventually seamlessly fit into our lifestyles. You'll start seeing the beautiful benefits along the way, and start influencing your community too.
Swipe through the gallery below for our top 5 tips on how to live a sustainable life today:
How to Live Sustainably
How to Live Sustainably
1. Use what you have, buy only what you need
In this day and age of online shopping, it's so easy to randomly add things to cart and have them all conveniently delivered to our homes. While this has kept us safe at home, we've also amassed a ton of things we don't really need. A sustainable lifestyle calls for us to look at our possessions, use them, and stop buying more just for the sake of buying. More often than not, we still have a wealth of treasures lying around our homes, waiting to be enjoyed!
Photo Credit: Edward Howell on Unsplash
2. Grow your own produce.
Plantitos and plantitas are not just encouraged to tend to beautiful house plants. Everyone is encouraged to plant their own produce as well. If you have the space and the patience to do so, why not pick 2-3 vegetables per month and see what becomes a success. You'll find that it's not just therapeutic, you'll also save a ton of cash, compared to when you buy from grocery stores.
Photo Credit: Markus Spiske on Unsplash
3. Swap single-use plastic for reusables
We love ordering food. But we don't love the packaging waste that comes along with it. If you can avoid ordering, that's great, but in the rare occasion that you do, request the restaurant to lessen plastic packaging, or even avoid having them send plastic utensils to lessen the waste. And since we still have a lot of plastic containers at home, try to separate them for recycling!
Photo Credit: Volodymyr Hryshchenko on Unsplash
4. Donate unused items.
'Tis the season to declutter! Much of our time is spent on random things, so why not be intentional about this activity and have it done soon? Make an inventory of your clothing, shoes, bags, and anything at all, set aside what you will still use, and let go of what you don't. If you are not giving them to charity or fund drives, there's a Facebook Group called 'Anything to Declutter PH', where users can let go of anything at all, and wait for users to claim them! Isn't it a brilliant idea? And when you let go, resist the urge to buy a truckload once again!
Photo Credit: Sarah Brown on Unsplash
5. Don’t just swap to paper—use even less of it!
Many brands have switched from plastic to paper, but that doesn't give us the license to waste paper either. Re-use paper bags and other paper products, and set aside other paper for recycling. If you can, go digital with your activities—from receipts, shopping lists, and more. If you really love the idea of a physical book, shop for 2nd hand copies, and share them with as many people as you can so that you're not just using it once.
Photo Credit: Perfecto Capucine on Unsplash
Lead photos (produce) by Markus Spiske on Unsplash and (quote) by Edward Howell on Unsplash
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