It is very nice that you want to make changes to reduce your footprint. I have tried to implement a lot of different approaches to my life too but it is not always easy nor cheap but it is worth it.
Like
@verreauxi I do feel humanity is doomed but I have a young daughter and I also like to believe that maybe if more people start making these changes that at least we have a small chance to turn things around, or at least slow down our downfall.
Here are 15 easy ways you can start making a difference:
1. Stop buying your water in plastic. Get a reusable water bottle and keep it filled and with you at all times. You’ll save money and the environment!
2. Incorporate walking or biking to some of your regular short-trip destinations. In most instances, you can walk a mile in less than 20 minutes. This is a great way to add exercise to your busy schedule.
3. Turn off lights and unplug devices when you’re not using them. Every little action adds up!
4. Keep the tires on your car properly inflated and get regular tune-ups. When your car’s tires are low on pressure, it has to work harder to move from point A to point B, wasting gas and increasing emissions in the process.
5. Eat more food that is grown or made locally and less red meat. Taste the difference, feel better and support the local economy.
6. Use the cold water cycle for washing your clothes. And do your laundry in FULL loads. This will decrease the amount of water and energy used, helping you save time and money. Bonus points for line-drying – it takes a lot of energy to power your dryer!
7. Set your thermostat to 78 in summer and 67 in winter. And turn-off the heat and AC when you’re not home. You’ll be surprised at the difference it makes in your energy bill.
8. Drive efficiently. Use the accelerator lightly, coast to red lights, stay near the speed limit, and park and go inside instead of idling your engine in a drive-thru.
9. Keep stuff out of the landfill. Sell items you no longer use to thrift shops, have a yard sale, or donate them to charity. Recycle or repurpose everything you can’t get rid of.
10. Use alternative transportation (bus, train, carpool, or bike) to get to work one day per week. Enjoy the chance to catch up on your reading instead of testing your patience in traffic!
11. Use cotton buds with paper sticks. The cotton buds that people use daily to clean their ears and apply ointments often end up polluting the environment.
In recent years, sustainable alternatives have emerged, including cotton buds with paper stems.
12. Use a reusable cup for coffee, juices, and smoothies. Four billion non-recyclable Starbucks cups get thrown out each year, and more than 1 billion foam, plastic-lined paper, and plastic cups from Dunkin Donuts get discarded annually — and that's just from those two multinational companies alone.
Every day, countless other fast food and beverage businesses provide people with the same non-recyclable options.
Bringing a reusable cup to your favorite cafe or food spot and asking the employees to fill that instead of taking a single-use cup cna make a huge difference over the course of a year. In fact, the report estimates that if people throughout Europe did this, 1,500 tons of plastic waste would be avoided annually.
13. Use a reusable tote bag. Globally, more than 1 trillion single-use plastic bags are used each year, but less than 5% get recycled. Plastic bags can be seen clogging sewers, waving from tree branches, and drifting in bodies of water, where they’re often consumed by marine animals searching that mistake them for food.
In the UK, efforts to restrict single-use plastic bag production and consumption have taken off in recent years, causing their use to fall by 86% since 2014, according to the report.
Even still, if more Europeans brought reusable bags along on shopping trips, it would divert 9,000 tons of plastic waste each year.
14. Use paper or reusable straws.Single-use plastic straws have become a major target in the fight against plastic waste — and for good reason. Americans alone use hundreds of millions of plastic straws each year, and they are nearly impossible to recycle.
Devastating images of turtles with plastic straws jammed up their noses have helped galvanize this movement, and a whole suite of alternatives have emerged.
15.Change incandescent light bulbs (which waste 90 percent of their energy as heat) to light emitting diodes (LEDs). Though LEDs cost more, they use a quarter of the energy and last up to 25 times longer. They are also preferable to compact fluorescent lamp (CFL) bulbs, which emit 80 percent of their energy as heat and contain mercury.
