Five Simple Ways To Go Green

I’m about to share with you my five simple ways to go green, but before you dismiss this post without even reading it, let me first say I’m not about to tell you to go Vegan,  zero waste, drive only electric cars or get rid of all plastic. So bear with me.  

As our world spins faster and populations grow, we’re constantly hearing about the impact of climate change, greenhouse gasses, how you should go plant-based, the giant continent of floating plastic in the ocean etc…

It’s a lot. And it can be overwhelming.  It’s no wonder that a huge percentage of Gen-Zers have anxiety over climate change.  Many of us who do care about the environment and what kind of planet we’re leaving behind can feel anxiety about what kind of positive impact we can actually make.

Let’s Talk About The Fringe

Your uber crunchy ultra environmentalist people talking about things like going zero waste, which quite frankly can seem overwhelming. Pretty much no one can truly go zero waste. Even those who do rely on others to create waste for them. It’s life. Feeling like we need to be perfect to have a positive impact does no one any good. We don’t need a small handful of people being nearly perfect with no impact or a low impact on the environment. What we need is a lot of people doing 10% better with their environmental impact.  With my five simple ways to go green I’m going to give you doable things to implement from a busy mom.

 Climate Deniers 

Then on the other end, there are those who think they don’t need to take care of the planet because it’s all a hoax. And then there are the Christians who believe they can trash the planet because they believe in a renewable planet from God. 

I’m a Christian and that last part frankly makes me want to vomit.  The Bible does talk about a renewed Earth, but that doesn’t give us license to trash it all. I believe as Christians we should be leading the environmental movement. God calls us to be good stewards of the land. I feel this so strongly in my core. Which is why I’m going to share with you some simple ways to go green and make simple doable changes to do your 10% better.

Here Are My Five Simple, Doable  Low Cost, Easy & Simple Ways To Go Green

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Switch to Laundry Detergent Sheets. 

I’m a huge fan of this one. Conventional laundry detergents are full of water. It’s the #1 ingredient. Not only is that a waste of water, we’re using extra fossil fuels to ship water from the factory to the store to your home. Ridiculous. Even concentrated laundry detergent is still full of water and as a liquid is heavier. Plus it comes in a plastic container.  Add to it the fact  that they can be full of nasty chemicals. News flash! If it contains fragrance, it’s full of chemicals.

Several years ago I switched to these laundry detergent sheets and they’re amazing.

With these you don’t have to make your own detergent AND you’re using an eco-friendly product. 

I try to convert everyone I know to these. My stepmom, mom, and sister-in-law have all been preached to and some even converted to using these and they love them.

Reduce Your Food Waste

This is a big one. Did you know that nearly 70% of what goes into a landfill is food waste?! Seriously. And it doesn’t break down properly. The lack of oxygen means that food waste can’t break down in a landfill. As Americans, we’re so wasteful and we end up throwing so much away. 

Here’s another stat, we throw away nearly 30% of our food waste. 

That means if you eliminate your food waste you can save ⅓ of your food budget.

With inflation up, the last thing we want to be doing is buying food we then throw away. 

Here are 3 tactics I like to do to combat food waste.

1. I look at the produce for the week that I’m buying and put 2 items back. It’s simple. You’ll save your grocery budget and you’re not going to go through it all anyway. Even when you plan your meals things come up and you don’t end up going through it all. 
2. Freeze it. I look at what’s in the fridge and if it looks like it’s starting to go, I’ll dice it up and freeze it or throw the whole bag in. Lettuce, kale, spinach, and other greens that are starting to go bad can be used in a smooth, stir fry or soup later. Onions, tomatoes, potatoes, carrots, peppers just to name a few, can all be diced up and later thrown in soups, casseroles, as fajitas etc…  it really is that simple. 
3. Use leftovers in a new recipe. We absolutely eat leftovers in our house for lunch or dinner another night. Not everyone likes leftovers or wil do this. But you can reuse ground meat, veggies etc…. And throw those into a breakfast casserole, frittata, or soup to give them new life without throwing out waste. 

Compost

I’m a huge fan of compost. I think everyone should compost. There are even handy gadgets that sit on your countertop if you live in an apartment that can compost your food scraps, like this one.

To keep composting simple we use these classic farmhouse style countertop bins and then take the compost out to our yard bin a couple of times a week. Before we had these, we just used a large bowl!

You don’t need money to compost. There are of course bins that you can buy ranging from these wood ones which we did buy to plastic ones that spin like this. 

In our last house, we used pallets we screwed together as our compost bin. Before that, we even just had a pile on the ground.

Composting is simple. You can learn more about it through a quick search internet search. In a nutshell, throw your fruit and veggie scraps, egg shells, coffee filters, and yard waste into a pile and stir it regularly. Even if you don’t stir it as often as you should like some people (cough, cough, us) it’ll still break down and give you amazing compost for a garden. Don’t garden? Give it to someone who does garden or even a community garden. 

Some people think compost stinks. It doesn’t stink as long as you avoid throwing meats, dairy and oils in there. Grains are not recommended to throw in either. 

Stop Buying Fast Fashion

Fast fashion, which is cheap poorly made clothing is a major contributor to environmental waste. They’re heavy polluters! We hear about how bad cows are for the environment (which is another post because they really aren’t. I recommend checking out the Discover Ag podcast to learn more about this.) but what we don’t hear about is that the fashion industry creates almost as much greenhouse gasses as the ag world. Plus agriculture has the ability to sequester carbon and actually take out greenhouse gasses.  

Food is something we actually need on a daily basis versus another trendy top from Amazon, Target or a nasty Chinese website with sweatshop clothing that you probably don’t need. 

Feeling like we need to constantly have something new to wear is cultural. You’ll see it in movies even. In the US you never see characters where the same thing more than once in a movie or tv show.  Whereas in a French film you’ll see the actor wear the same thing more than once. And the French by comparison are experts at better not more. They have smaller wardrobes but they’re higher quality, so they last.

When it comes to fast fashion, I’m not saying we don’t ever buy clothing off Amazon or somewhere cheap. But we try to limit it, and try to reduce in general. This is harder with kids who are growing out of everything and more doable with adults.

Practical ways to reduce buying fast fashion include:

1. Buy better not more.  When it comes to my own clothing I prefer to buy fewer items that are handmade and higher quality. I quit buying clothing that is cheaply and poorly made. It’s $20 for a reason y’all! Instead of having 3 shirts that cost $15-20 each, I prefer to buy one high quality shirt that is $40-50 that will actually last and wear it more often.
2. Buy secondhand. As a mom, this helps me reduce the Amazon purchases for the kids. I love yard sales, hand-me-downs and consignment shops. When it comes to my own clothes, I love Thredup.com to buy new or like new clothing and not have to go to the thrift shop. You can even search items ‘new with tags’ if you only want new stuff. I’m not a big fan of going into thrift shops to buy my own clothes…..they have a certain smell. With Thredup I can easily get the brands I want and the quality I want with the convenience of online shopping.
3. Shop ahead for the upcoming seasons. To avoid the temptation to click that ‘buy now’ button, I’ll look at what we may need for the upcoming season. In the summer, I’m starting to buy the long sleeve clothes and pants for the fall and winter. In late winter and early spring it’s shorts, tanks and tees.
4. Adopt a timeless style. I have a pretty go-to look. My closet definitely has only a few specific colors or patterns I like.  I have occasionally bought some lower priced fast fashion pieces from Target or Old Navy, but they are more or less timeless pieces that fit into my look and I’ve had for several years and will keep for several more. I avoid the trends so that I don’t regret something that doesn’t work for me and keep items for years not months. 

Now for the fifth and final simple way to go green.

Eco Sponges & Loofahs.

I quit buying sponges and loofahs made from plastic. Ick. But you’ve still got to clean your house and your body. In favor of a plastic loofah, buy a real one. Real loofah actually grows on trees (seriously) which means you can compost them. You can also just use a washcloth. After all, the greenest thing is using what you already have!

Same with sponges. You can buy natural sponges made out of natural material like loofah rather than plastic. If you already have the plastic counterparts, don’t throw out what you already purchased just to buy something new. But once they’re used up, make the switch to an eco-friendly biodegradable version.

So my friend there you have it. Five simple switches and ways to go green. They won’t cost you any additional money, and will actually save you money.

Thanks for stopping by!

Kaitlyn