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!
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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.
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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!
Your quick tips are beautiful and helpful to reduce the waste on a regularly basis. I like it.
Yeah, you are right with what you said. Especially with the junk mails that come along. Your tips are really helpfull
Nice list. Some ways to conserve energy are washing clothes on the cold water setting, ditching the desktop for a laptop, using energy efficient light bulbs and using space heaters to only heat the room you’re in.
Great tips but I doubt I’ll be able to keep them up long enough. Maybe a week or two I’ll carry the flag without fail, but start slacking there after. Lol!
Wow, great tips! I think my day will have 25 hour soon…!
I liked your ideas, It’s high time that we all should follow such ideas to prevent our earth and the surroundings.
Some great tips, I always try to buy in bulk when I can. I will also try to implement some some of your other tips in my life. Thanks for the article!
How about signing up for your local Freecycle network (http://www.freecycle.org/) Get rid of your unwanted stuff without throwing it away (it’s amazing what people will be happy to take from you and reuse). And every now and then something wonderful pops up which you can get reuse yourself.
Ian
Wow – my favicon showed up next to my comment – fantastic – how did you do that?!?
Ian
As blogging is meant for the updates i used to do regularly,but these are too tensed with my work i am unable to do blogging frequently..Thanks for the post.
thank you Turkish
happy new year to all.
It is a very important to create awareness for this subject and to do the best on fighting child poverty.
As always, good and “useful” information. Nothing like taking a coffee break and gaining awareness. On that note, use real coffee cups and not disposable ones!
hey great tips man. we started to reduce our waste in the office too by cutting off paper cups and plates. instead everyone brought in their own mug and eating utensils and washes their own dishes. saves alot of garbage.
Great tips..good
I didnt understand the first part from the post, somebody could explain me please? I found it very usefull and I would like to understand everything clear…Even without the first part, Nice post
I think the biggest issue is going to be electronics waste and computers. We’re advancing far faster than our recycling efforts allow for.
Don’t use tea bags – use tea leaves instead!
Yeah we should all go green!
I use the carrier bags form my local supermarket as domestic bin bags. They’re just the right size for the smaller bins and its reusing them for something.
I only use reusable bags and boxes. Some time ago I don’t but then I had a huge buinch of empty bags. I don’t want to throw it away. Now I always use a box or a wooden bag. They also are more stable.
The key thing is to creat awareness on the subject of waste and how it effects all of us. If everyone could do even the smallest bit then that would make a big difference.
awareness for this subject and to do the best on fighting
Going green indeed has gone a long long way. Bloggers unite to disseminate its importance which is a great way to start preserving mother-earth.
Thanks for the post. And every now and then something wonderful pops up which you can get reuse yourself.
Spot clean rather than rewashing? tell that to my husband.
I see this is an old post, but does this Blog Action Day happen every year? It’s a really good idea.
Thanks for the great article. half of these things i didnt even think about. And some i did and didnt even know. great advice