Welcome back to our other blog posts on sustainable living. In our previous blog posts, we’ve discussed seven steps that help you live a sustainable life. If you haven’t already read Part 1, then you should first read that and understand why sustainable living is essential for you.
Steps towards sustainable living
Sustainable living not only helps to create a healthy, eco-friendly world but also improves your well-being. And remember, our everyday choices impact the natural habitat and environment around us. To live a healthy and valuable life, it’s better to make choices that bend towards sustainability. So, without wasting another second, let’s dive deep into seven steps towards sustainable living.
1. Avoid using plastic water bottles and coffee cups
In our daily lives, most of us have to travel, either to our respective universities to study or to our workplaces. Without a doubt, there’s a part in everyone’s life when we take a coffee or tea break and consume our favorite beverage in plastic cups.
And if you’re someone who drinks it in a paper cup and thinks it’s environmentally friendly, let us tell you that you’ve been fooled. The paper cup that you use to drink your tea/coffee contains a thin layer of plastic, and it’s even more harmful to the environment.
Alternative: Instead of using plastic and paper cups, start carrying your own reusable coffee cups. It’s not only immensely environmentally friendly, as the use of plastic would be reduced, but you’ll also be secure about drinking from a cup that you’ve rinsed with your own hands.
2. Avoid using chemical-based cleaning products
Using toilet and floor cleaners is devastating for the environment. These artificial cleaners are made up of chemicals that can affect the environment and are certain to harm wildlife, ecosystems, and water resources. Also, these products require harmful materials to be manufactured and packaged. And using these cleaners would certainly ease your cleaning work, but don’t you think it’s harming the environment even more?
Alternative: You can go for natural products for cleaning purposes. Rather than using products that contain chemicals, you can use vinegar, baking soda, and essential oils. These products are definitely environmentally friendly, but they would also save you from infections that can be caused by using chemical-based products in the long term.
3. Adopt to solar-power chargers
We at Dwij work for the sole purpose of making the world understand the true power of sustainable living. Do you think it’s possible to live a sustainable life when every household has at least three phones and each phone consumes energy to be charged? Have you ever thought about how much energy one nation consumes just to charge every phone in a year? A research study conducted in 2021 showed that, on average, a nation uses around 24 terawatt-hours (TWh) per year just to charge phones.
Alternatives: Don’t you think it’s a shocking figure to waste an insane amount of electricity just to charge our smartphones? Either way, we should collectively reduce the use of smart gadgets to save energy and benefit our own well-being. Or we should adopt the use of solar-based chargers to avoid using electricity to charge phones and laptops.
4. Prefer homemade beauty products
Are you someone who loves to use makeup, or are you someone who’s very fond of skincare? Well, it’s surely not a nasty habit to take care of your skin. But don’t you think it’s harmful to the environment to use products with single-use packaging?
Alternative: Similar to cleaning products, you can use natural and homemade makeup to not only avoid waste in the environment but also because using natural ingredients on your skin is far better than using any chemical-based product. The first step to being sustainable is to avoid the use of chemical-based products and dive into organic things.
5. Prefer using public transport
Many of us probably use public transportation as our daily mode of transportation. But on the other hand, there are a great number of people who don’t prefer using public transport and travel by their personal vehicle. And the major problem with using personal vehicles is the pollution that is being generated. India is among the top 8 nations in the entire world in terms of pollution. And do you really think we can be sustainable if we’re ranked this high in terms of pollution?
Alternative: In India, around 1.7 million public buses are registered, and the public bus sector operates 17,000 buses carrying roughly 70 million people per day. Ask yourself Is it really difficult to travel by public means to live a better and healthier life?
6. Prefer Bulk shopping
Most of us don’t shop in bulk. Whenever our daily use items are out of stock, we prefer buying them in small quantities, and you might think this is good as it does not amplify the concept of waste. But don’t you think purchasing daily essentials on a regular basis increases the waste of plastic and packaging that actually takes years to be recycled?
Alternative: You should prefer buying daily life products in bulk. Shopping in bulk whenever possible helps to reduce packaging waste. You can bring your reusable containers to general stores with bulk bins for items like grains, nuts, and spices. This would immensely contribute to reducing plastic waste.
7. Reduce the use of paper napkins
Remember the meal that you loved to eat at your favorite restaurant? I know most of you must be imagining going out right now and treating yourself to your favorite food. And you might think, What’s the harm in dining outside? Well, there’s none, but don’t you use paper napkins to clean your hands after eating outside? Have you ever thought about the number of people who dine out in a day and the number of paper napkins that are used? Well, it’s huge; one of the major sources of paper waste is generated by paper napkins, and don’t you think it’s not even close to living a sustainable life?
Alternative: Rather than using paper napkins next time, you can shift to carrying your personal cloth towel. Carrying your own towel to wipe your hands off won’t just be a part of adopting sustainable living but will also improve your personal hygiene. Do you see any harm in using your own personal clothes to wipe your hands off? Well, there’s none.