can sustainable living be a realistic goal (essays of the sustainable lifestyle blogger)
what is sustainable living?
In recent years, we have seen an increasing consciousness about the environmental footprint we leave on this planet, as a response to all the consequences our past and current actions have on the environment surrounding us. It is undeniable the impact we have had on this world, and the necessity to change it soon, and that is where sustainable living comes into play.
What is sustainable living, you may ask? Well, living sustainably consists of the actions we take in our day-to-day lives in order to reduce our environmental impact to a minimum, either by eating a sustainable diet, finding ways to reduce waste, consuming fewer things we don’t need… There are many options for us to choose from when it comes to living a more sustainable and environmentally friendly lifestyle.
We will be talking about a few ways you can do so right now from the comfort of your own home because achieving a sustainable lifestyle is not hard at all, all you have to do is to have the interest and care to just start changing your actions.
In conclusion, a sustainable lifestyle is one that aims to reduce our environmental footprint on this planet, a world that we are sadly destroying with our careless actions every day and one that we cannot ever replace. We highly recommend that you first check out How To Have A Sustainable Diet At Home.
can achieving a sustainable lifestyle be a realistic goal?
Many people think about the dreadful environmental situation that our world lives in today, as a consequence of our careless and selfish everyday choices that we do not seem to even care about; and they begin something called green anxiety, feeling totally overwhelmed and not knowing what to do to solve the problem or if it’s even solvable at all, to begin with.
If you feel like this, do not worry, achieving a sustainable lifestyle is not something impossible to do, you can even argue it is quite easy as long as you are barely committed and interested in changing your day-to-day choices. Every little action you make is a big change for the planet over the long run, so do not feel like your actions are worthless because they are not 😉
So, a big takeaway is that achieving a sustainable lifestyle is not hard, it is quite simple, and the hardest step in achieving sustainable living is actually starting, from then on it will be very easy for you to keep up your sustainable life choices.
the best ways to achieve a sustainable lifestyle
You should already know that achieving a sustainable and environmentally friendly lifestyle is absolutely possible, and it is not as hard as many people think it is. But, how exactly can you begin to change your habits in order to achieve sustainable living? Here are the best options to achieve a sustainable lifestyle right now:
1. Sustainable Diet
A sustainable diet is one that is focused on eating healthy food that also has little impact on the environment and has a low carbon footprint. It’s a diet that even if it promotes a healthy living style, it does focus a lot more on the environmental impact our food choices have and plans to reduce them to a minimum improving the overall life of our society and future generations.
But you may be thinking about how you can begin to eat more sustainably from the comfort of your home, do not worry, luckily for you we have some tips so you can begin changing your environmentally unfriendly diet to an environmentally friendly and healthy one. Having said this, here are some tips so you can begin to eat a sustainable diet at home:
- Eat more fruits and veggies, these are not only healthy options that should be in everyone’s diet, but they are also one of the best environmentally friendly options out there. These produce much lower gas emissions and require fewer resources than other types of foods, so, feel free to eat as many fruits and vegetables as you want! Now you know why you should have listened to your mom when she told you to eat your vegetables when you were little.
- Avoid highly processed foods, these are not only very bad for your health but their production and transportation have a big environmental footprint that you want to avoid taking part in. Always prioritize foods that are natural and unprocessed, you don’t have to exaggerate though (Don’t go out there eating vegetables directly out of the dirt).
- Try to buy locally, as we said earlier, this is a great option because generally, it doesn’t matter as much what you eat because it is produced locally, on small farms, which always has a less environmental footprint than conventional supermarkets imported industrial foods, it also saves the carbon footprint transportation leaves. Plus, you are supporting small businesses from your local town or city, which is always a great thing.
- Choose sustainable seafood, marine life is a great choice for our diets, it has many great nutrients that improve our health and lifespan overall, however, you should be careful when choosing seafood. Overexploitation is a very big problem for marine life as a whole, so you should try to buy seafood grown with aquaculture or captured artisanally, which is a sustainable and conscious way of consuming seafood.
- Reduce your waste, buy only what you will eat and never throw out any food (this is a no-brainer), you should also compost the organic waste and avoid using plastics and single-use materials to package and store your food. This is a whole subject to talk about in itself, so if you want to learn more about it feel free to check the United Nation’s article on how to reduce your food waste.
These five tips on how to have a sustainable diet at home should work out fine, there are many other tips but as always we have presented you with the most important ones. Now that you know what you can begin doing at home to eat more sustainably, it is time to take action! Read about Sustainable Diets more in detail by checking our article about it.
2. Reducing Your Waste
There are many ways to achieve a sustainable lifestyle, one of them is of course reducing our waste, one of the most polluting and material byproducts of our existence. Doing so is no easy task either, but with just a few small changes in our habits, we can achieve a massive change for the better in this world. Having said this, here are the best ways to reduce waste and live more sustainably at home:
- Recycle, one of the best ways of handling the waste we produce is by recycling it. Not only do we make sure our waste is not going to further pollute our rivers, seas, waters, and soil, but we also make sure that we give a second life to the waste, reducing the necessity to create more materials that will end up polluting our planet even more. Check out how easy it is to recycle with the Environmental Protection Agency’s article.
- Compost, this is a great way of handling organic waste, like banana peels, coffee grounds and filters, eggshells… By composting at home you can make sure that your organic waste is not taking up unnecessary space in the landfill, and resources to transport it to the landfill, but also avoid polluting the air with methane that is produced in the landfill. Not only that, but you are also creating a new type of soil enrichment full of nutrients that help new plants grow and thrive, without the need for potentially harmful fertilizers and other man-made nutrients. Overall, composting is something that is really worth doing at home and could have many benefits to it, check this article out to dive deeper into this subject.
- Reuse, an equally important step to reduce waste and the environmental impact we have on this planet, reusing something instead of throwing it out is an excellent option, saving not only the environment but also saving you money that you would have spent on something that you clearly did not need to buy. This is one of the most preferred methods of reducing waste, as people are economically incentivized to do it.
- Anaerobic Digestion, this is a pretty interesting topic in itself and an awesome way to handle our waste, it consists of letting bacteria decompose our waste in a sealed container or generator, producing various byproducts like biogas or digestate that could be used as productive materials in the creation of other useful products.
- Reduce, this is one of the most straightforward of all these ways to reduce waste, simply reduce your consumption of things you do not need and you will produce less waste overall. You don’t have to be a cheapskate, you only have to think before you buy (a great way to do that is using the 7-day rule, wait 7 days before you buy something to see if you really want it or need it, you will be surprised most of the time you stop wanting the item in just a few days), not only will you reduce waste, but you can be a lot more financially free.
Overall, these are the best and simple ways to reduce waste in your own home, we are going to go into more detail about all of them in a second, so you can learn more about them and how you can do them at home.
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3. Read For The Environment
One of the best ways of helping the environment and becoming a lot more sustainable is to inform yourself. It is simple to understand why: you will never change your habits for the better and become more sustainable if you do not know why or how to do it, that is one of the biggest problems in our world right now that need to be changed.
Read more articles on a sustainable lifestyle, how to become more environmentally friendly, etc. Proof that you probably do not know as much as you think you do, do you know what Fast Fashion is and why it is one of the most pollutant industries in the world, yet almost no one knows about it? If you did know, congratulations! But sadly the majority of people still have no idea of the transcendence of the fashion industry in our world. We advise you to read about it in our tens of articles on the subject, links are in the Summary.
An equally important thing is to spread awareness and talk with your friends and family from time to time about the importance of a sustainable lifestyle. Many people do not even know why a sustainable lifestyle is needed at all, which is quite a bit worrying, to say the least.
Overall, the best way to become sustainable is to get informed and inform others, because if people knew and comprehended the real transcendence of our actions on the world, everyone would be doing their best to reduce their carbon footprint and we wouldn’t be worrying that our planet will become inhabitable in the near future.
how to begin to construct a sustainable living lifestyle
You know now the best ways to achieve a sustainable lifestyle from your own home, but how to actually begin to do all of that? Where can we start to change our life choices for the better for the environment and future generations?
Glad you asked that question, it might be a little overwhelming at first, but you do not have to start all in at the same time, as we said earlier, it is the little changes in your day-to-day life that makes a very big difference in the future. And the combined effort of all us can make the ultimate difference that we need to save this planet.
So you can begin by cutting down a little bit of plastic use today, finding healthier diet alternatives tomorrow, and reading and informing yourself more about the environment… The things you can do are endless, and you do not have to do them all at once, so feel free to take your time.
And what better way to practice reading than with Blinkist! This wonderful service gives you access to more than 5,000 nonfiction books and 40 titles added each month that will help you cultivate your mind like never before, and it even lets you listen to these books if you don’t have the time to read. Check this link out and receive a free trial and a 20% discount if you want to buy this service! (Affiliate Link)
summary
We hope you have learned a lot today from this article, the main takeaway is that achieving a sustainable lifestyle is not something out of this world, it is perfectly achievable by anyone and all it takes is to begin changing your habits for the better. You also have to be careful not to fall on green anxiety, as there is no reason you should feel guilty for doing your best to improve this planet.
We are thrilled to teach people all around the world 🙂 Also, did you really know what Fast Fashion really is and its terrible consequences for the environment, the planet, the workers, society, and the economy? Do you know exactly what the Slow Fashion or Sustainable Fashion movement is? You should really take a look at these articles about this forgotten and unknown but very urgent and important subject, click here to read „Can Fashion Ever Be Sustainable?”, Sustainable Fashion, Ethical Fashion, Slow Fashion or Fast Fashion 101 | How It’s Destroying Our Planet because knowledge is one of the most powerful strengths you can have, while ignorance is your worst weakness.
We also have a big surprise for you! Because we want to give you the right to know us better, we have prepared a carefully dedicated About Us page where we will tell you who we are, what our mission is, what we do, a closer look at our team, and many more things! Do not miss this opportunity and click here to check it out. Also, we invite you to take a look at our Pinterest, where we will pin everyday sustainable fashion-related content, clothing designs, and other things that you will surely love!
