New Year’s Resolution: Using Less Stuff
With a week into the new year underway, we’re sure you’ve already begun to implement your new year resolutions into your daily life. If using less is not already one of your resolutions, then it should be!
Using less stuff encompasses a range of factors that encourage you to use less stuff in your daily life. We want you to use less energy in terms of gas and electricity but also to help you minimise your water and food waste. As well as this using less stuff also persuades those to limit their plastic consumption, to strive for a more sustainable, greener planet.
Why Use Less Stuff?
Living sustainably saw a huge influx in 2019. With the idea of living greener lifestyles appealing to many. Perhaps the reasons as to why we should use less were responsible for this…
Firstly, it comes as no surprise that many of you will be wanting to use less in order to do your bit to protect the earth. We have one planet, and it comes as no surprise that the environment is of huge concern currently. Scientists have confirmed we are in a critical position and have stated that if we do not transform our current lifestyles and habits in the next 12 years then there is no going back.
How to Use Less Stuff?
There are many ways to get involved in using less which can help you to reduce your overall carbon footprint. Many of the following methods are simple and easy to do yourself. As mentioned, using less stuff encompasses a whole range of topics, see below our top tips for some of these.
Using Less Electricity
Perhaps one of the most wasteful energy habits we all have is leaving the lights on when they are not in use. How many times have you left the light on in the bathroom when you’ve finished? Probably more times than you can count on your fingers. Remembering to turn the lights off is simple to do and overtime can save you some money.
Another common mistake made by mankind is leaving the fridge open whilst we ponder what there is to eat. Apparently, people spend around 10.4 hours each year staring into the fridge. Opening the fridge door wastes electricity and although might not seem like a big deal at the time uses 7% of the appliance’s total energy use. Make it your mission this year to keep the door closed and only open it when necessary.
Using Less Water
Water wastage is also a problematic area for the western world. It’s easy to forget that water is a sacred resource because it is so readily available to us. If you want to make a difference to the amount of water you use this year, try these useful tips.
Investing in a modern washing machine can help save a tonne of water. Older machines use an average of 45 gallons per load in comparison to newer higher efficiency models which can be as low as 9 gallons. Not only this ensure that when you are putting the washer on, make sure it is a full load.
We use water all the time, even when brushing our teeth. This tip is undemanding and all it takes is a little effort on your part. When brushing your teeth ensure that you turn off the tap between spits. On average around two gallons of water flows from a faucet each minute – that’s a total of four gallons wasted just because you couldn’t be bothered to turn of the tap!
Using Less Plastic
The methods for using less plastic, much like water and electricity are easy to incorporate into your daily life. Our first tip is to remember your bags for when you are shopping. There are limitless designs to choose from and remembering to bring them on your weekly shopping trips can help save vast amounts of plastic. Just one person using a reusable bag over their lifetime would remove more than 22,000 plastic bags from the environment.
A keep cup is also a great way to reduce the amount of plastic you are contributing to the planet. Using your own reusable cup can help you to reduce those 7 million coffee cups of waste produced each year in the UK alone. A practice like this is easy to do and can help to use less plastic and potentially save some animals too.
Conclusion
Using Less Stuff is more important than ever as we begin this new decade. The tips we have shared within this post, we hope will encourage you to make a conscious effort to think about the planet this year. Make just one of the shared tips a part of your new years resolutions and begin the change to a greener, more sustainable future.
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