The Absolute Easiest Ways to Start Going Green

 

Hey hey hey people! It’s been a huge goal of mine to try and be more environmentally conscious in my everyday life. I’ve always been super into recycling and the whole reduce, reuse, recycle thing, but I wanted to try and take it to a new level this year. It was actually one of my Intentions for 2019!

When you think about it, the amount of trash you (probably) produce is absurd; it’s actually insane how much we throw away. You can easily throw 100 things away PER DAY – just think of your morning routine: makeup wipes, empty makeup container, Q-tip, cotton pad, one use hair elastic. Then head out to start your day: egg shell, bread bag, K-cup for your Keurig. Or if you eat breakfast outside of your house: breakfast sandwich wrapper, coffee cup, coffee cup lid, receipt from breakfast. It goes on and on unfortunately.

For me, it’s pretty unrealistic to think that I could eliminate all waste from my life (like those people that end up with one mason jar of trash after 5 years). But I can definitely be doing better. There are tons of beyond easy changes you could make in your everyday life to reduce the waste you produce. Small changes make a BIG difference, trust me. By reducing just one of your usual pieces of trash per day, you eliminate 365 pieces of garbage per year. That’s huge (and SO doable!)

The Absolute Easiest Ways to Start Going Green

Take your own shopping bags with you

Easy, simple, so EFFECTIVE! To start with, they don’t even have to be cloth bags. The next time you’re going shopping, just toss a few old bags (plastic, paper, cloth, any will do the trick!) into your car or purse and hit the road. Even just reusing the ones you already have in your house helps a little bit.

Eventually, once you’ve run out of old bags, consider buying a pretty one to keep you motivated. I love this one but I think I’m going to buy myself these ones for my purse since they can be squished so small, I can always have one on me. We all forget, myself included, but hopefully with a few baby ones lying around in my car or bag, I’ll be able to fully eliminate plastic bags from my life.

Bring a reusable cup for your daily coffee/tea

Pretty self explanatory based on the amount of coffee/tea most people drink. Plus, with all the separate parts of coffee cups, with this small change you’re not just saving the cup, you’re eliminating the sleeve, lid and stopper from your trash.

For me, I actually prefer the reusable mug to paper cups for more than just the environmental impact. When I take my mug, my coffee stays hot so much longer so I can keep drinking it all day long. Even though I still drink cold coffee (student problems), it tastes a heck of a lot better when it’s warm, am I right?!

This might be my favourite environmental change because there are WAY too many cute options. I bought myself this one to kickstart my habit because it can be literally thrown in my bag upside down and no leakage, but I also found an amazing pink one (obviously, I mean, it is my new colour of the year – exhibit A and B), this pretty gold one, and this fun patterned one. All looking cute AF while helping the environment. I hope that’s what people say about me after this post.

Use containers when you pack your lunch

This is something I’ve taken VERY seriously over the past two years. I realized just how crazy it was that I had all of these containers, and I was still choosing to use ziplock bags for literally every. single. thing. in my lunch. That probably equated to at least 5 bags PER LUNCH. Given that I take lunch 5 days a week for let’s say… 48 weeks a year (give or take), that’s 240 bags. I was honestly pretty devastated with myself after really thinking about it.

I’m proud to say that I have used less than about 20 ziplocks in the past 2 years. There’s obviously some times when they’re unavoidable, and that’s FINE! But making an effort to even eliminate one from your lunch every day makes a huge difference.

If you are thinking about switching, but hate having to carry around heavy, gross containers all day, I have a simple solution! I found these containers that collapse into themselves after your finished eating, making everything is super compact for the rest of the day. OR there are even reusable “Ziplock” bags to keep the convenience of the bag! Plus, they come in fun colours so if you’re like me, and need something pretty to get you motivated.. you’re welcome.

Switch your aerosol dry shampoo for powder

I’m not going to lie, this one is a bit tricky to get used to. I love how convenient it is to wake up, do a few spritzes and walk out the door. The powder dry shampoo takes a little more love to get right, but so worth it!

Aerosol cans are TERRIBLE for the environment, and if you’ve noticed, they tend to run out pretty fast (at least for me!) I bought my first powder dry shampoo back in the summer, around the time I shared my new natural skincare routine, and I kid you not, I still have at least 4/5 of the bottle left. I don’t wash my hair every day so I pretty consistently use dry shampoo every second day. So that bottle is what I call long lasting! Plus, it’s always a straight WIN when something makes my travel life a bit easier. I can just throw this in my carry on and go rather than having to squeeze it into my 1 litre liquid bag.

So far the only one I’ve tried is the No Drought Dry Shampoo from Lush. I know Bumble + Bumble has a powder dry shampoo as well, and I think that’s the one I’m going to try next!

Stop buying makeup wipes and use a makeup removing cloth instead

Honestly, this should have it’s own post on my blog outside of ways to go green because it’s just. that. good. Last year, I actually won another blogger’s contest and got sent a Makeup Eraser in the mail. I thought it was a scam because, like, what even is that and it’ll never work. I can confidently say now, from the bottom of my heart, this is the most amazing thing ever. There will never be enough AMAZING things to say about these cloths.

I actually asked for a second Makeup Eraser for Christmas this year because I didn’t want to have to use anything else while my first was in the wash. And then, I went out and bought a set of the Sephora branded cloths for my sister and friends for gifts too. I will NEVER go back to makeup wipes. These things change lives people. If I ever get sponsored by Makeup Eraser, you heard it here first people, this thing is the shit and I loved it before it was sponsored. Just saying. Now I need to sent Makeup Eraser a blog proposal #sponsormeplease.

There you have it, the absolute easiest ways to start going green. You’re entire life doesn’t have to change instantly, but little changes here and there actually do make a huge impact on the amount of waste you produce.

Do you have any favourite ways to cut out even one piece of trash a day?! I’d love to hear them in the comments!

Victoria