Today is Blog Action Day, where bloggers unite to blog about the environment. I wanted to share a few of my quick tips that I use daily to reduce my waste on a regularly basis. If you have any tips you use daily or if you made a post today for Blog Action Day, feel free to share it!
-
Use reusable bags or no bags at all
Not just for grocery shopping but when you go shopping at the mall too. If you are only buying a few items, consider carrying them out in your hands or pockets instead of taking a bag. -
Spot clean rather than rewashing
Often we will get a stain or a dirt stain on our clothing. If you take a wet rag and spot clean the area and let it dry you will be able to re-wear your outfit without the need to rewash the entire thing. This works especially well for blue jeans and winter jackets. -
Use reusable storage boxes and containers
Zip lock bags are a great invention, but they are also a wasteful and are not recyclable. Store your food in reusable containers that you can wash and reuse again. -
Look for less packaging and buy in bulk
A lot of products we buy have excessive packaging or double packaging which should be avoided. Best way to avoid excess packaging is to buy products in bulk and store them at home in a reusable container. -
Use cloth napkins instead of paper napkins
In the Kitchen, the garage, or even on your dinner table, using cloth napkins that you can rewash will help reduce your consumption of paper napkins. -
Opt-out of commercial snail mailings
All I get through snail mail these days are junk mail! This waste a lot of paper, but you can now opt out by visiting the OptOut Prescreen website. You can also call each company individually to opt out too. It might take a lot of time at first but overtime your junk pile will be reduced. -
Shop at thrift, used item, or consignment shops
If you are looking for just about anything, chances are a thrift shop might just have one at half the cost. This not only saves you money, but you will be reducing the need for another new item to be made. -
Repair broken items
There is a R that I always state in the Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle stance, that is Repair. Instead of buying something new when it breaks and throwing it out, consider repairing it instead!
The tips are pretty simple and if you just try to add one to your daily routine each week, you can drastically reduce your daily waste. For daily tips on helping the environment, please visit The Giving Hands which posts about the environment and ways to help reduce, reuse, repair, and recycle.
If you liked this post, subscribe to my full RSS feed. Learn more about rss feeds with my quick guide. You can subscribe through e-mail too.
Those are great ways to save money and the environment!
I like that fourth R. We should try and get the manufacturers to stop engineering with “programmed obsolescence” that way we won’t have to replace things as often.
[...] Quick Tips to Reduce Your Daily Waste [...]
Do agree with the Repair, but it’s becoming harder and harder. My grandad used to be able to repair colour TV’s (back when they were rediculously expensive), and was awesome at it. In the end he just said “Get a new one, I can’t get the parts”.
Nice tops Sarah,
They certainly do ring a bell as I’m conscious of them myself. I also blogged about this and I think it is important that we actually take these tips on board with a conscience.
Once mother earth is ruined - she’s gone
Monika
Wow. Great tips to be geener than usual huh!
Certain products these days are made to break, I truly believe that and on purpose they don’t provide the parts so we are forced to buy new ones. But there are certain things that are easy to fix. Like clothes, furniture, even our dishes. People actually used to glue and fix their dishes when they break, clay stuff mostly but now days we tend to throw out anything that is broken.
Hey, I started a BlogactionDaygroup on Blogcatalog, if you have the chance, please stop in and list your post.
Thanks
http://www.blogcatalog.com/gro.....gactionday
Thanks for the mention, Sarah!
Good ways to save the environment! and also reduce the cost.
Thanks for participating in Blog Action Day and helping to bring the blogosphere together to save the earth and it’s inhabitants!
it’s really nice to see someone focusing on the simple essentials. In this day and age when all the talk is about solar and wind power, it is nice to see someone remembering focusing on the simple and inexpensive ways that any person can go a little greener.
Another tip: instead of exchanging paper towels and napkins for cloth ones, go one step further and exchange all drying and mess-cleaning paper or cloth products with unfolded cloth diapers. You can use them for anything one can use a shop towel, bath towel, or bandanna for. They take less water and soap to wash, are really absorbent, can be dyed any color to suit your tastes, and dry on the line in full sun in 15 minutes or less! They’re also only $7 or so for a dozen. Now that’s a deal that works for the planet, and your wallet!
[...] Learn about a 4th R from Sarah of BlueJar.com. [...]
Thanks a lot for giving these opportunities. Hopefully it can save my everything.
Thanks for your kind information. I would like to follow your instruction. It can give me much pleasure.
I’d completely missed this post somehow. Some great tips there - although admittedly I’ll probably never get round to 99% of them….
Thanks for your nice information. It will help me in great ways. Thanks a lot.
the best thing I have seen at work is they use biodegradable drinking cups
they don’t release any chemicals like regular Styrofoam or plastic cups
made from corn i think
Well i must thank you because i was totally fade up of daily wastes on my blog.
I think now i will get a relief from it. thanks.
I never heard about Host PC before.i will have to add it to the list.Thanks for shearing.
I have never heard of “blog action day” but it’s a great idea. Seems like a good way to raise awareness of recent issues and should be done more often!
Hello!
I think this try.
Not only will this help the environment, but save money as well. Since I have a gig family I always try to do both.
Great tips…Saving always start from small things but gives big impact.
Very helpful tips. you would be surprised to see how much a family wastes a year.
Hey, what happened to this site? You’ve gone and deserted us!