10 Easy Ways To Help The Environment In Your Daily Life
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Time to read 6 min
Sustainability is at the center of everything we do nowadays. Whether it’s business or personal changes, learning ways to help the environment has never been more important.
The trouble with transitioning to a sustainable life is it’s not always simple. Perhaps you don’t know how to start being eco-friendly? After all, planting a tree is great, but it can be hard to work that into your daily life.
That’s why we’ve put together the easiest ways you can help the environment on a daily basis.
What Does It Mean To 'Help' The Environment?
When we talk about helping the environment what we really mean is implementing sustainable practices to your daily routine that makes a difference in reducing negative impacts on the planet.
The biggest threats to the Earth are:
- Climate change
- Deforestation
- Air and water pollution
Humans are at the center of these problems. And if humans created them, then it’s our responsibility to fix them.
But supporting the planet is up to us all. By taking active steps to become more sustainable in your daily life, you too can contribute to helping the environment recover.
Sustainable Things You Can Do Every Day
While planting trees and joining clean-up groups are super important for the environment, a lot of us can’t fit these into our busy schedules and instead save them for days like Earth Day.
That’s why we’ve created this list of sustainable things you can do to help the environment on a daily – not a one-off – basis.
Let’s jump right in.
1. Go Vegan
We’re starting off big.
Going vegan is the single greatest thing you can do to help the environment. Animal agriculture contributes 18% of the world’s greenhouse gases, which is more than the entire transportation industry altogether (1).
Methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, caused by cows (yes, their farts) is staggering. It’s estimated 150 billion gallons of methane is produced by farmed cows each day.
By going vegan you:
- Significantly reduce your climate change impact
- Save (a lot) of water
- Reduce demand for deforestation
How you can help:
Going vegan can feel extremely daunting. Vegans do not consume meat, dairy products, or eggs. It’s normal for people to feel limited when the foods they have grown up eating suddenly are off the menu.
There are lots of ways to transition to a vegan environmentally-friendly lifestyle. But we believe the best way is to discover what vegan food is all about.
A Vegancuts Snack Box is perfect for those considering going vegan. Every snack and pantry item in this monthly subscription is 100% vegan and is delivered in eco-friendly packaging. This helps many people thinking of going vegan discover new, exciting, and most of all tasty treats.
2. Make A Compost Pile
Who knew a little bit of dirt would help provide a cleaner future?
If you have the space for it, making your own compost pile has many benefits for the environment.
Composting reduces the amount of trash in our already full landfills, lowers greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and positively affects air quality.
How I can help:
Composting can change the way you dispose of your waste.
To get started it’ll take a little research to get set up. Most importantly, you’ll need a place to keep it. Somewhere open, level, and with good drainage is ideal.
3. Take Up Cycling
Driving is essential for most of us. But is it essential all the time?
Transportation is the second-largest contributor to climate change after animal agriculture. So driving less will have a positive impact for the environment.
A lot of the time we’re in the habit of driving to get around when the destination is within walking distance. Or taking two cars when everyone would fit in one.
Shifting the mindset of driving can have a significant impact.
How I can help:
Try to view driving as an option, not a necessity. If you can walk or bicycle instead you’ll get some exercise – bonus!
Make sure your bicycle is dusted off and ready to go to make this transition easier.
4. Replace Single-Use Plastics With Metal
Generally, if you’re using metal, you’re reusing which is great for the environment.
Metal is often a replacement for plastic or throwaway materials like aluminum. Bamboo can also work great too.
We highly recommend these eco-friendly metal straws by Simply Straws.
How you can help:
Search your home, specifically the kitchen where most things get thrown away.
Note down everything that’s plastic or throwaway and see if there is a metal alternative.
Plastic straws? Go metal. Aluminum cooking trays? Go metal!
While slightly more expensive right off the bat, this will save money in the long run.
5. Don't Double Wrap Fruits & Veggies
It’s easy to get carried away grocery shopping and feeling the need to wrap fruits and veggies in the thin plastic bags provided.
This is often unnecessary. Especially fruits and veggies with natural wrapping like:
- Bananas
- Avocados
- Corn
- Onions
- Oranges
- Lemons and limes
By not double wrapping naturally wrapped fruit and veggies you can save a lot of plastic each year.
How you can help:
In cases where it’s not necessary, refrain from double wrapping fruits and veggies. In other cases, bring along a couple of reusable produce bags.
6. BYO Mug
Carrying your own coffee mug is a great habit that is starting to gain some traction.
Starbucks alone goes through 8,000 “to-go” coffee cups per minute… per minute (2)! That’s an unfathomable amount of waste.
Due to this, coffee chains have started giving small discounts to those who bring their own mugs. At Starbucks, bringing your own mug gets you a $0.10 discount. Which means it’s good for the environment and your pocket.
How you can help:
Purchase a reusable coffee mug you really like. Enjoying the mug will help you not forget it.
If you are prone to forgetting your reusable mug. Keeping one in your car and one at home will make sure you have your bases covered.
7. Shop Consciously
It’s in our nature to consume, which isn’t always the best thing for the environment. Thankfully, there’s a lot of things we can do to consume in a more sustainable way.
More brands are becoming sustainably-minded and paying close attention to who you buy from can be a good way to support the environment too.
How can you help:
- Shop online. But try to purchase items in bulk and avoid express shipping if necessary.
- Shop with brands that use eco-friendly packaging.
Did you know Vegancuts use 100% recyclable eco-packaging? Get all your snacks in one monthly shipment and take some strain off the environment.
8. Love Your Leftovers
What’s not to love about leftovers? Not only do they provide us with quick and easy lunches, but they limit the amount of waste, in turn, saving us money along the way.
If you’re not making the most of your leftovers, it’s a perfect way to help reduce your food waste.
How you can help:
Cook with leftovers in mind. Sometimes cooking more than you’ll eat can be smart and doing a bulk cook-up can feed you and your family throughout the week.
Make sure to have reusable food storage containers on hand and space in the fridge.
9. Use Eco-Friendly Beauty Products
Beauty products like skincare, makeup and perfumes often contain harmful toxins for you and the environment.
By choosing beauty products that are eco-friendly and clean goes a long way to helping the planet.
How you can help:
Switching to eco-friendly beauty products isn’t always easy. There are a lot of new ingredients, alternative products and new labels to pay attention to.
A Vegancuts Beauty Box subscription takes the hard work out of transitioning to eco-friendly beauty products. Each eco-packed box comes with 4+ beauty products that are always environmentally-friendly, 100% vegan, and never tested on animals.
10. Become Energy-Efficient
In our digital world, it’s hard to consider switching off. But energy-efficiency doesn’t mean going without. There are plenty of energy-efficient ways to reduce the amount of energy used which also saves money in the long term.
How you can help:
- Optimize your thermostat – Whether heating or cooling, making sure your thermostat isn’t working overtime is an easy way to become more energy-efficient.
- Reduce water usage – People generally use a lot of water and most of the time we’re using water unconsciously. Whether it’s leaving the tap running while brushing teeth or washing “half-loads” of clothes there’s plenty of room to save water. Bathing also uses about 3-4 times as much water as showering.
- Purchase energy-efficient appliances – If you’re buying a new refrigerator, air conditioner, or even TV, opting for Energy Star certified products is a lot better for the environment.
Jase Quelch
Jase is passionate about everything vegan. When he's not advocating for animals, you'll find him roaming the globe scoping out the best vegan eats.
