Everyday Eco Tips

As much as we’d love to be, we can’t be skiers for 24 hours every 365 days of the year. So, for that reason, our in house eco guru, Clemence Hope, has put together some everyday eco tips for you all. There’s no skiing on Mars, so we’d better look after Mother Earth.

Always carry your reusables: Nowadays they come in all different shapes sizes and materials so you can pick the item best suited to your lifestyle, or better still reuse something you already have. Don’t want to buy paper straws? Use bucatini pasta, don’t want to splash out on an expensive water bottle or coffee cup, use a Kilner jar or just have a sit-in coffee.

Use fewer disposable items: Try eating ice cream in a cone, rather than a cup. Use your travel mug when buying coffee. Keep your water bottle handy.

Eat more veggies and eat less meat: The extent you take this to is up to you, but any effort is great here.

Support your local market and stores: This has numerous benefits, namely that the footprint of things you pick up is probably far less, but also you may have the option to get fruit, veg and many other products without packaging. Who knows you may even meet members of your community whilst you’re at it.

Buy food that is in season (try and buy it locally too if possible): This is pretty easy and has plenty of perks. Whilst keeping you on your toes with new recipes, you will also be enjoying produce at its most tasty and nutritious.

Freeze food: This may seem obvious, but with all of our busy lives and impromptu after-work drinks that lead us astray, it can often be far too easy to let the stuff in your fridge go off. So many foods keep well in the freezer and can be warmed up at moments notice. Love food, hate waste!

Buy in bulk: More and more stores are now offering a bulk bin section, this can be particularly good for getting hold of dried fruit, nuts and grains such as couscous (the food so nice they named it twice). Your packaging doesn’t have to be some brand new Instagram-able cute bags, re-use any bags, jars or containers you already have to reduce the amount of packaged products purchased. Some stores even sell stuff like laundry detergent, soap, and other household cleaning products in bulk and often at a discount. Don’t forget your reusable shopping bags.

Take shorter showers: Try reducing your shower time by five minutes, or better yet, take a five-minute shower. Just cutting two minutes from your shower time can save ten gallons of water, that said, don’t forget to scrub behind your ears.

Say no to spam: Who knew that in this digital age we are still getting sent pamphlets through the door. Contact the distributing company or marketing association to have your name removed from their mailing list. You can also stick a “no junk mail” sign on your mailbox. Not only will this save you time by not having to sort the mail into recycling, but it will also help to reduce the thousands of trees destroyed each year to create the junk mail that is sent to your home.

Receive and pay your bills electronically: As a continuation of the above, most banks now have everything you need online or in an app so make sure you aren’t doubling up and getting paper copies that you don’t need.

Walk or bike whenever possible: Take the bus, train or car share if one of these is not practical. Walking or cycling reduces the amount of gas spewed into the air by cars, thus lowering carbon emissions greatly. In addition to having less of an impact on our planet you can become a little more fit and healthy, so make it part of your exercise program.

Turn off your electronics when not in use: A computer left on for 24 hours can use a lot of electricity (up to 1000 kilowatts), even when your TV or computer is off, it is still using power. Look into getting smart plugs from which you can remotely turn off devices and even prevent latent energy use by devices while they’re turned off.

The key is to not be too hard on yourself or think this needs to cost the earth – quite the opposite right, save Mother Earth. Remember to start where you are, use what you already have and do what you can. Then once you can do more, do it!