Nature inspires… As conscious consumers we put in a lot of work to preserve what matters to us and we face a lot of challenges. It’s not easy to be an environmentalist and read news about Trump’s plans to limit the EPA and increase fossil fuel extraction. It’s good to be informed, but constantly reading …
Category Archives: Responsible Habits
#28 Less is More
Embrace minimalism… More and more Americans are realizing the downsides of our over consumption and the upsides of returning to the basics. Apart from improving quality of life, the minimalists featured in this documentary are drastically reducing their environmental impact. As we learned in the start of this 30 day guide, the biggest thing we …
#27 Stifling Stuff
How much stuff do you have? And how much of it do you really need? The average American home (I know you’re anything but average 😙) has tripled in size in the last 50 years, and yet 1 in 10 Americans still uses offsite storage for their stuff… We’ve even got a television show dedicated to …
#26 Carry Your Own Cutlery
BYOC… Disposable cutlery is kind of a big deal. China produces about 80 Billion pairs of disposable chopsticks every year. That’s about 20 Million 20 year old trees. And you can bet the US’s addiction to plastic silverware isn’t much better… Some progressive restaurants are moving toward eco-friendly to-go packaging and utensils, but even so, …
#25 A Piece of Trash
Pay it forward… While microplastics may be too small to spot, we can easily see the big pieces of refuse that are an eye sore to our shared outdoor spaces. Nothing gets my goat like a pile of food wrappers on the beach as I’m heading in from a surf session. I used to look …
#24 Microplastics
Microplastics, macro problems… If you’re refilling from habit #23 then you won’t have to worry about microplastics, but if you’re not yet, you need to know about this. Just like bottled water, microplastics are a huge environmental problem that most people either don’t know about or outright ignore. What are microplastics? Microplastics (aka microbeads) are …
#23 Refill
The forgotten r… You’re already reducing, reusing, recycling, and even repurposing… but are you ready to refill? Personal Care & Household Products It’s pretty ridiculous that we buy a new plastic bottle every time we run out of shampoo, shower gel, lotion, handsoap, and countless other personal care / household products. You can go the minimalist …
#22 Recycle Right
Busting a few myths about recycling household items… Why is this important? Because you’re likely buying things thinking they are recyclable when they’re not. After learning what’s actually recyclable and what isn’t, you can be smarter about the products you choose. It’s also important to know how to recycle certain items, because while many items …
#21 Online vs In Store
When is it more eco friendly to shop online vs in the store? Cutting our consumption has the biggest impact on our footprint, but there are a lot of smaller habits we have that also add up over time and this is one of them. It’s also a question I’ve received several times, so I …
#20 Upcycling
When you can’t recycle or repair, consider upcycling… The intent of upcycling is to reuse something that would otherwise be thrown out. Upcyclers make old or discarded items into something useful, saving them from the landfill. It’s hip, it’s art, it’s eco-friendly; What more could you want? Check out these upcycle examples: This is just the …