In these times, where a new type of normality has appeared, we will have to adapt quickly to a different way of life centered mainly around our home. With the economy slowing down and most family’s revenue stream dwindling, sustainability becomes a good and healthy practice and most do. Beyond this, there’s a series of tips and practices you can easily do to improve your homebound sustainability exponentially.
Seeking help for effective change
To be sustainable means consuming as much as you produce, avoiding to hurt future generations’ ability to fulfill their basic needs. A good way of improving your sustainability is making little changes to make it more efficient, cost-effective, and eco-friendly. You could do this by yourself, but a way of saving trouble, technical difficulties, and supporting your local economy is to seek help from experts in the field.
Home remodeling is an effective way to go green. You don’t need to build a home from scratch because remodeling allows you to reuse materials or only to make minor changes that do not cost much yet have a positive impact on the environment. Another thing you could do with the help of a home remodeling company is making your home cooling heating more efficient with different materials.
Do it with your own hands
Something not as complex as a home remodeling is always recommendable to do on your own. Cook and bake from scratch using fresh ingredients and cooking instead of buying pre food are not only healthier, but it also reduces dramatically the amounts of waste, trash, and plastic you will be bringing in and out of home otherwise. Other good practices would be washing individual pieces of clothes by hand or keeping them until you can do a full charge on the washing machine, you’ll be saving water and electricity!
Go for reusables
Switch plastic for cloth in every scenario you are able to unless it makes you more susceptible to bacteria. Rinse your sauce, jam, and condiment jars with water before discarding them, this will give you access to every little remnant that you would have wasted in the can. Have a cooler instead of a plastic water bottle. Use all the sites of the sheets of paper. Keep the plastic bottles you have and use them as storage for small things like pencils.
Be mindful
Being at home, anxiety and pantry raids can become common, meditate, think about what you are going to need, prepare a meal plan, make a list with the different resources you are going to need for certain activities while at home. Most of the waste, unnecessary spending, and stress comes from panic buying. The best way of being sustainable while homebound is to think before taking action. There is a series of basic questions that will allow you to understand better the usefulness of a product and whether or not you should buy it:
- Do I really need it?
- How many times will I be able to use it?
- Do I need it now, or I can wait?
- Do I need it or I Want it?
- Is this wasteful?
Beyond this, always try to be present. Being at home does not necessarily mean that you’ll be present in your home. Be conscious of the space and needs of living, mostly at home. Be aware of turning on and off the lights only when you are in the room, use a glass of water when brushing your teeth, close the showerhead while you soap up your body, avoid using hot water if you can. Meal prep and portion your foods, make a grocery shopping list. Give your leftovers to those in need. As a rule of thumb, before buying or throwing something away, ask yourself, could I make better use of this?
Final thoughts
Staying inside is the new normal therefore we need to optimize this time and enjoy the comfort of our homes. Sustainability is a good and useful thing to practice during the quarantine. As it was already mentioned there are a few tips for achieving this in your home. One of the first steps is to completely transform your house, either by doing it on your own or hiring professional help. This was followed by being mindful and going for reusables. Living this kind of life will not only benefit you personally but will help save the world as well.