Tips For Being Eco Friendly

Although the last two hundred years has brought an unimaginable amount of wealth and prosperity to the human race, it hasn’t been without its drawbacks. Although we live longer than ever and have access to more technologies than ever, it comes at the cost of environmental damage including air pollution, desertification, deforestation, global warming, ocean plastic pollution, and much more.
Although the human race can’t afford to forgo all the advantages we’ve gleaned from these two centuries of increased industrialization and globalization it falls on us to find ways to live sustainably and cause as little environmental harm as possible. This is perhaps mainly done on R&D and governmental policy levels, but people’s habits cause a lot of damage to the environment as well. We might not be able to influence the former, but the latter is almost completely under our control.
Find Ways to Conserve Energy
Energy generation constitutes one of the main components of CO2 emissions around the world – anywhere from 20 to 40% of CO2 emissions come from energy production depending on the country. Much of this energy is used to supply homes with electricity, heating, hot water, and more. By conserving energy in your home, you’ll take an important step in reducing CO2 emissions. There are many ways you can go about doing this:
● Replacing lighting sources with more energy-efficient ones: one of the key items that drive energy costs in homes around the world is lighting. By replacing your lamps with more energy-efficient LED ones, you can reduce up to 40% of energy consumption in your home.
● Using newer, more energy-efficient appliances: EU regulators forcing fridge manufacturers to comply with certain energy-efficient standards, this snowballed into manufacturers adopting these standards for the entire world because it was cheaper to mass-produce this way. This decision by the EU singlehandedly resulted in tens of millions of tons of less CO2 in the air. Now, imagine if everyone voluntarily went and looked for more energy-efficient appliances. You might have to pay a bit extra upfront, but the impact on the environment in the long-run is really impressive and will of course save you money in the long run.
● Insulation and heating: heating and cooling are perhaps the largest producers of CO2 in homes. More recently, many buildings have started using solar heating although most still use fossil-fuel-energy-driven heating. That’s why insulation is so important. If you have the proper insulation in your home, you won’t constantly lose heat. Without proper insulation, it is akin to leaving your fridge’s door open.
Change Your Eating and Shopping Habits
Your eating and shopping habits have a large impact on how much you pollute too. If you decide to only drink bottled water, eat out of season and consume lots of red meat and buy fast fashion regularly your impact on the environment will be pretty big. Using a local green grocer or zero waste shop can help cut your plastic usage and many will use local suppliers too.
It is almost entirely needless as well. You can change your behaviour while inconveniencing yourself very little. Instead of plastic water bottles, invest in a water filter. You can switch to locally or UK grown fruit and veg and swap red meat cravings for veggie alternatives.
Holidays
Flying also causes a huge amount of carbon emissions. Choosing to holiday in the UK or using the Eurostar to travel to Europe can cut your carbon footprint massively.
Recycle!
Regardless of how environmentally friendly our manufacturing processes are, we still need to use many inorganic, hard-to-decompose materials in our products. And because of this, recycling is a must if you want to build a more sustainable environment.
Recycling is no longer only plastic bottles and cartons, but a lot of materials can be recycled nowadays. For example, scrap metal collection service on transmetal.co.uk will help you get rid of scrap metal and recycle it.
Buying second hand furniture, books, clothing, toys and household items is another really easy way to recycle people’s unwanted purchases and cut your carbon footprint too. Charity shops, reuse centres and online marketplaces are a great way to pick up a bargain and reduce your consumption.
Check out our eco tips section for more ideas on how to lessen your impact on the planet.