Growing up, I was strictly taught to not touch the thermostat, turn off lights I’m not using, don’t waste water, don’t take more food than what you will actually eat, recycle- just to name a few. All great things for kids to learn at a young age to not be wasteful and do what you can to conserve resources and keep the planet clean.
For the last year or so, I’ve been feeling a strong pull to spread the word about helping our planet. I guess it comes from the thoughts you get when becoming a parent, as I did this past year. You want your kids to live a full, happy, healthy life on this wonderful planet and you want to teach them to treat it with kindness.
Your children watch everything you do. If you are wasteful, they will be wasteful. If you litter, they will think it’s okay to litter. If you don’t show them how and why to be eco friendly, they won’t know that it’s a good idea.
There is so much we can do to keep our planet healthy and it’s actually really easy. One thing holding some people back from being eco friendly is the cost of some eco friendly products. But I’ll share with you some inexpensive and simple ways you can contribute to cleaning up the planet and making it a healthier place to live.
I recently read a post on EclecticallyEma.com and was inspired by her eco update of what she does in her life to help the earth. It pushed me to share what I do and try to help spread the word on how each and every one of us can contribute to the health of this planet. For ourselves, our children, our children’s children, and so on.
What “Eco Friendly” Means
Eco friendly, in short, means “not harmful to the environment”.
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Why Being Eco Friendly Is Important
It’s important to be eco friendly because it’s:
-Better for our environment- Saving animals from extinction & benefiting the planets longevity.
-Better for our health- Living longer and more healthy lives for ourselves and our children.
-Better for our pocket- Saving tons of money using reusable and eco friendly products.
Now, let’s get into ways I currently contribute to being eco friendly & how you can easily do the same in your home!
Work From Home
I’ve worked from home for about a year now. Working from home reduces the need to drive your car every day or use public transportation. Thus reducing fuel emissions and greenhouse gases in the air.
We are in the middle of quarantine from Covid-19, and so many people are working from home! Meaning very few vehicles are polluting the air we breathe! I love that thought! If more people could continue working from home once quarantine is over, it would continue helping the earth (and our lungs).
Click here to find awesome work from home job ideas that don’t require a phone! Finally, be a stay at home mom!
I understand a lot of people can’t work from home depending on what they do for a living. But if you use a computer most of the day, there’s not much need to drive to work each day.
Grow A Garden
My husband and I grow fresh vegetables in our garden every year. This year I’m going to do things a little differently. Instead of growing all our plants from seeds or sprouts, I’m going to grow from scraps. Like the root end of celery, carrots, onions, and potatoes. I’ve never grown any of these vegetables before! So, it should be fun.
I’ll most likely go buy some sweet banana pepper plants, zucchini, & cucumber plants, but other than those, I’ll be growing from scraps!
Here is a great video to watch for how to use scraps to grow a garden!
Bake Your Own Bread
Most families use at least 2 loaves of bread every month, if not more. Mine uses 4! All bread comes wrapped in plastic, sometimes even 2 layers of it! You can save money and avoid using all that plastic by making your own bread at home.
Bread is easy to make on your own, and only takes a few ingredients. Some people say its even therapeutic to knead the dough!
Most bread recipes yield 2 loafs. You can have one fresh and freeze the second one!
Baking your own bread saves you money every month. The average loaf of bread costs about $3 with tax. That’s not including the yummy fancy bread! Baking your own bread costs less than a dollar for two loafs combined.
I love following this video below, where she teaches how she makes her bread homemade.
Use Eco Friendly Cleaning Products
In my house, we go through cleaning products like crazy, trying to keep our home as sanitary as possible for our baby. She puts everything in her mouth at this point! What I personally need out of my cleaning products is something without chemicals, has to be non-toxic, and have natural ingredients. I recently found a company called Cleancult. They meet all my needs plus some.
Their ingredients are all-natural and actually work. The main ingredient in their cleaning products is coconut. The fatty acids in coconut are known to have antiviral, antifungal, and antibacterial properties. It’s used as a base to fight off germs, dirt, grit, and grime, while also busting the myth that you need chemicals to clean. It’s safe for your day-to-day use and our planet’s future.
They are also a zero-waste kind of company. When ordering from Cleancult, you will start out with shatter-resistant glass bottles. When you need a refill, it is sent to you in paper milk carton containers (with a funnel to make it easier for pouring into your glass bottles) that can be recycled.
They are an eco friendly company, even down to the way they ship their products to your house. All of their cleaning products come in recyclable packaging. What more could you ask for when looking for non-toxic, eco friendly cleaning products?
Use A Reusable Water Bottle
Plastic is a problem. It’s ending up in the ocean, being swallowed by animals and ultimately killing some of them by consuming so much of it.
Reduce your plastic waste by using a glass water bottle. You may be thinking “I would break a glass water bottle if I had to carry one around”. Trust me, I know. I’m horrible when it comes to accidentally breaking glass objects. The glass water bottle I use is Zulu. It has a silicone sleeve to prevent breaks. I’ve had mine for over a year and it’s still going strong!
Shop From Thrift Stores
When buying clothes for myself or my baby, it’s fun to go thrift shopping and see what you can find! If you don’t like going to multiple thrift stores finding a few items at a time, there are online thrift stores that make it easier. ThredUp is an awesome online thrift store to find clothing, accessories, and shoes for women, men, and children.
You’ll find top brands you would be paying full price for, but can find pieces in perfect condition, spending much less money and helping the world in the process of recycling clothes. The majority of my baby’s clothes are second hand. About half of the clothes I wear myself are second hand as well!
Donate Unwanted Clothes And Household Items
Did you know that 85% of clothing ends up in landfills? Only 1% gets recycled! Those are clothes that could have been purchased by someone for a couple dollars a piece at a thrift store!
There are families out there who can’t afford to buy clothing at full price. Help those families and help the earth from the growing piles of trash. Take unwanted clothes & household items to thrift stores to be sold instead of throwing them away.
In the last year, I’ve taken at least 4 full pickup truck loads to my local Salvation Army and Goodwill thrift stores to be donated instead of trashed.
Use Less Water
Shower together! No seriously! I shower with my daughter (9 months old currently). It’s a lot faster for me to take a shower myself and have my husband hand me our baby. I wash her up real quick in the shower which only takes a few short minutes. Otherwise, I’d be filling the bathtub with water, washing her, then running water for a few minutes to rinse her off. It takes less time and water to just quickly shower together.
Another way to save water is to turn off the water when brushing teeth or washing dishes. In my current house, I don’t have a dish washer. So washing dishes could potentially use a ton of water. What I do is wet the dish, turn off the water, scrub it real good, turn the water back on to rinse, and done!
Pick Up Trash
I live on a busy road with people throwing their trash out the window as they drive by. The trash ends up getting blown into the field where plants are being grown or blown down the hill into a pond, then ends up in the creek, then into a river and off into the ocean (if it makes it that far) either way, it effects the world if we don’t pick up the trash.
And to all those people who think it’s okay to throw trash out the window of your car…please stop. It’s not okay. The earth is not your trash can. Its where you live. Treat it respectfully.
Throw Away Less Food
The average American family throws away up to $2,200 in food per year according to the Huffington Post. That could have fed SO MANY PEOPLE.
Figure out how much food your family usually eats and try not to make more than that amount if you don’t plan on eating the leftovers. There are families and children a few miles away from you most likely that would love to be able to fill their bellies with that food that’s been wasted.
Related: There Toxic Heavy Metals In Your Baby’s Food. Find out how to avoid health problems from occurring in your baby with these tips!
If you have leftovers, think of a way you can create a new meal from it the next day. For example, I made seasoned chicken, onions, and potatoes (all chopped up to bite-sized pieces and baked) we had some left over, so the next day I made quesadillas with the meat and veggies. Get creative!
How Eco Friendly Are You?
I know I’m not doing the eco friendly lifestyle 100% in my daily life, but a little bit is better than nothing!
These are all easy things we can incorporate in our daily habits to prolong the life of our planet and make it a better place to live! Not just for ourselves, but for all the animals that share the space too.
My next big goal is limiting the use of plastic bags and paper towels in our house. I’ll be purchasing reusable bags for grocery shopping, and some cotton towels for cleaning up messes and wiping off hands.
What are some things your family does to be a little nicer to the environment?
Hey Megan!!
This is an AMAZING post!! I love that you show how to regrow food from scraps. I have done this with lettuce, garlic and spring onions. I was obsessed with seeing how much they had grown each day so this will be an awesome idea to really teach kids about being more eco-friendly and reducing our waste as well as where food comes from! Great job!!
Ema-Rae @ Eclectically Ema
Hey Ema,
It really is fun to watch the plants grow!
I currently have celery growing in a little container of water on my windowsill and it’s grown a half-inch every day!
I’ve never grown celery before, so I need to look up again when to plant it in the ground.
But yes, I’m excited to teach my daughter about where food comes from and anything she may want to know about it.
She’s not old enough to care quite yet (under a year old) but I plan to do all kinds of outdoor fun learning activities when she gets bigger!
Thanks for reading, Ema!