5 small ways and 1 big way you can help the environment.

Sometimes I feel like their is a misconception that to help the earth you have to do all or nothing. But there are some small ways you can make a difference. These are some of the habits we have incorporated into our daily life.

First you want to look for ways to reduce. Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle is more than just a mantra, it’s actually the order you want to use things. Reducing consumption and reusing items has a smaller environmental impact than recycling but of course recycling is better than trashing.

Easy Change 1-We reduce our consumption of paper towels by using kitchen dish towels like this one.

I do all of my cleaning with towels like these and we use for hand drying as well. We keep paper towels for glass cleaning purposes only, so we rarely buy them.

Easy Change 2- it’s so easy to pack pouch food in your young child’s lunches. They’re mess free and I totally get it. Sharkie loves pouch yogurt. But that adds so much to the landfill. We reduce our consumption of these by purchasing these reusable ones.

You can purchase a 10 pack of these pouches here. They’re even dishwasher safe!

Easy Change 3- Now that we’ve reduced let’s talk about how we can reuse. One of my favorite ways to reuse is to purchase second hand. While I’m a frequenter of Goodwill, it can to even beyond that. Don’t let the misconceptions discourage you. You can find really nice stuff at Goodwill or on Facebook Marketplace. I’m currently redoing Sharkie’s bedroom and have found Lilly Pulitzer bedding and Pottery Barn furniture gently used. Not only does this help the environment, it saves money. I also sell or donate our old stuff instead of trashing whenever I can.

Easy Change 4- This one is for my female readers and while it’s not for everyone it helps a ton!

In the United States alone, approximately 12 billion pads and 7 billion tampons are discarded each year. While many of these products end up in a landfill, others clog sewers or contribute to the staggering amount of plastics in our oceans.

I’ve recently switched to reusable period products. I’m actually obsessed with my Knix Period Panties. I have less irritation and I’m not filling a trash can all the time.

Easy Change 5- During the Covid Pandemic we’ve all been ordering so much online and that’s totally understandable but those packages add up. I use all my boxes, tissue, and packing materials again to ship out for my business. If you don’t have use for the materials yourself, ask friends and neighbors if they need before recycling.

Now for the big way, and fair warning this one isn’t popular with everyone.

Quit Purchasing from Fast Fashion Brands

What’s a fast fashion brand? Well…Fast fashion brands produce pieces to get the newest style on the market as soon as possible. They emphasize optimizing certain aspects of the supply chain for the trends to be designed and manufactured quickly and inexpensively and allow the mainstream consumer to buy current clothing styles at a lower price.

Brands like….

• Old Navy
• Zara
• Victoria’s Secret
• Primark
• Uniqlo
• H &M
• Walmart
• Target
• Shein
• Forever 21

Most of the stores on this list are on my never ever shop, a couple of them like Target I shop for clothes selectively. They produce things quickly, cheaply, and in poor quality.

I use to love shopping at Old Navy but I noticed the clothes looked like heck after one wash. I wouldn’t even give them to Goodwill. They were becoming rags for the dog bed. I just thought this can’t go on. So I started making investments in better brands for my wardrobe. If you see me wearing Old Navy now, I got it at Goodwill.

I recognize that we’re all in different boats financially and we can’t all afford to make investments in our wardrobe. This is where shopping second hand is key! 95% of my wardrobe is secondhand from consignment or Goodwill. It’s totally doable and you’ll find some cute pieces!

Whether you make one change on this list or all 6 we all need to do our part to do help the Earth!