Hey ya’ll hope you’re staying safe and inside, I know its been a few weeks since the quarantine started, and I can’t imagine how you must be feeling at this point. Were all longing to go back to some normalcy, unfortunately for us this has become the “new “normal. The other night I was thinking what the heck am I going to do when this lock down is over. I can’t imagine my day not being in my house all day anymore. Enough rambling just hoping the best for ya’ll during this time.
So, I wanted to get into the things that I have been doing at home and incorporated in my everyday routine to live a more sustainable life. When I started this journey, I had no idea what I was doing honestly or what I was getting myself into. Everything you do is baby steps of course; this is something that you can’t do overnight its more of a transition. I mean I am still learning and honestly there are still tuns of things that I can continue to add to my sustainable life changes.
We all know that plastic does play a huge part in our everyday life. We literally use it all the time. Water bottles, paper plates, paper cups and utensils. There are everyday items in your household that contains some form of plastic. Now I am not saying that I am plastic free because trust me I am not, but I have made little changes to have less plastic at home. Small changes I have made I stopped buying plastic water bottles and gallons of water, instead I bought a Brita which is a lot better personally all you need to do is change the filter every few months. I stopped using plastic bags so instead I was bringing recycle bags not plastic to put my groceries in. What about produce bags? Now that’s a lot of plastic. There is a solution for that I bought couple sets of produce cotton bags that I would bring to the store with me. Now due to COVID there is a law now we are not allowed to do this for the time being. Another change that I made that was huge for me is the use of plastic or foam paper plates at home. I did not like to wash dishes, so I constantly used these, let me tell you what a huge waste is that. I didn’t realize it until I was quarantined with my husband and the trash contained more plastic plates than anything. I decided that needed to change that and use my dinner wear and my mason jars. If you have dishwasher put all your dishes in there, saves you time and lots of water waste as well. Just one load and call it day.
So now I know that many of you have heard the use of straws and how it affects our turtles since all this plastic ends up in the ocean. It does, why not make a small change and stop the use of plastic straws. That was a transition I made as well and honestly, it’s the best thing you can do. If you’re interested in these straws shop here, you will be able to buy our reusable straws. They are not expensive, very affordable and we offer the cutest silicone tips in a variety of colors. Now stop and think about all the plastic that we use on a daily basis and if that plastic isn’t properly recycled like it should be, it ends up in landfills and then in the ocean.
DID YOU KNOW
Typically, plastic takes 1,000 years to break down, now that is a crazy number isn’t it. Water bottles take 450 years to break down as well. If you’re interested in reading more about it check out more facts on household products and their decomposition cycles here. Buying reusable containers for your water instead of water bottles.
Recycle, recycle, recycle, I can’t say that enough sometimes. I recycle but to be honest there were products that I sometimes didn’t because I didn’t want to spend the time washing the can it came in or plastic bottle. Now that I am more conscious, I take the time to wash canned goods or plastic peanut butter jar.
There is another household item that I noticed goes to waste and a lot of it in our home, and that is paper towels. I can’t tell you the amount of paper towels my husband and I use. He was the worst, taking a paper towel and hardly using it just tossing it out after being used for just an instant, it was so annoying and such a waste. If you’re interested In reading more about how wasteful paper-towels can be in your home to this link and get more information, educate yourself. Now I recently placed an order for reusable and sustainable “paper towels” they come in a roll just like the store the only difference is they are cloth and have a cute design on them and can be washed and reused. For the time being I am using paper towels just not as much instead I have kitchen towels that I use the most. When I am wiping down my counter tops, I use hand towels from my bathroom to stop the amount of waste that goes with using paper towels. It’s all about finding ways to be less wasteful, it sounds hard, but it really isn’t once you slowly make that transition it becomes easier.
I hope these were useful tips that you can incorporate in your ever day life. Consider making a transition, remember this our planet and taking care of It is important because we live on it. Killing it off will not be beneficial to us in any way. Stay safe and wash your hands.
