Live Lighter
Green Living Tips (and Green Gift Ideas!)
Do you have someone on your holiday list who’s conscious of their carbon footprint? Or perhaps you’d like the world to be a better place and wish to give only eco-friendly gifts. Either way, I’m sure you’ll find a gift idea or two in today’s guest post!
There are quite a few things we carry around with us when we leave our homes. Electronic devices, keys, wallets and additional pieces of clothing as the seasons start moving toward the colder months of the year. We could move one step further from that as we carry items that are also green in nature and better for cooler temperatures as those in the fall and winter season.
Follow these tips to do just that and make one more move toward a green Earth:
1) Travel Mugs
With winter here, we focus on warm drinks once more to replenish our energy and bring comfort to our days and evenings. You should do your best to replace plastic reusable bottles with a travel mug instead. This will help lessen the number of bottles that end up being recycled or laying around landfills when they get trashed. Even though you could still use a BPA-free metal bottle for your water needs, you can also replace it completely by using an eco-friendly travel mug to store water. They are large and very useful for both hot and cold drinks, so check out the options available to you.
2) Handkerchiefs
What better way to stay green than with your personal hygiene? Replace those disposable wipes with handkerchiefs for the ever-present flu season! In most cases we could easily go through entire boxes of those, leaving a huge amount of paper just laying around, which eventually ends up in a local landfill. Let’s face it – when we need hankies a few are never enough.
3) Eco-friendly Hand Sanitizer
Hand sanitizers are often offered as a good solution to keeping the flu at bay, however most of the ones on the market may not be of the natural kind. Do a bit of research around the stores in your area and check whether there are any places selling natural hand sanitizers instead of the common kind usually found in retail stores.
4) Reusable Bags
One of the first things that come to mind when it comes to green shopping is avoiding plastic bags. We all know they’re everywhere and that they take a very long time to decompose in the natural world, so we should do our best to avoid using them at all if possible. This is where reusable shopping bags come in, giving you a chance to avoid the pesky plastic in favor of biodegradable and eco-friendly alternatives.
5) Umbrellas
If you are prone to forgetting your umbrella then you already know how annoying it is to be stuck in the rain with nothing to cover you. In most cases we would use a taxi or our own vehicle to get through the rain and other unpleasant weather. Hiring a cab to get you from point A to point B means you will leave almost double the carbon footprint, though. Even some companies have decided to switch their vehicles to hybrids or even electric ones, that electricity has to be produced in some way. Most sources of power are not green, which means you will still leave a larger footprint than getting some fresh air with a walk. Keep your umbrella handy for those walks and remember to bring it with you at all times.
About the Author
End of Tenancy Cleaning contributed this article. Learn tips on eco-friendly living by visiting: http://www.endoftenancycleaning.org.uk/one-off-cleaning/SW12-one-off-cleaners-balham.html
I love the handkerchief idea – how classy! And the reusable bags are becoming more fancy; some of them come in their own bag for easy storage. Do you have any eco-friendly gift ideas to share?
