Environmental Awareness

As far back as I can remember I’ve always been very aware of my impact on the environment, granted, for many years that didn’t discourage me from being wasteful, but I’ve always been aware of what I should be doing and have always made some effort and encouraged others to do so too.

More recently Hubby and I have both been making concerted efforts to reduce the impact our lives have, and actually when we started listing it, we do quite a lot, here are some of the things we do:

• I make my own surface cleaner using vinegar, rosmary, mint, dishwashing liquid & essential oils
• We recycle as much of our rubbish as possible
• Our recycle bin is a large cardboard box a toy came in
• We avoid buying bottled water when out if possible, and when we do we buy a large bottle, not two smaller ones – it’s not hygenic to reuse these bottles by the way, so avoid doing so by taking water with you when possible
• We reduce the packaging we consume by buying the largest size possible of whatever we’re buying
• I use a face washer (flannel) instead of cotton pads or cleansing wipes
• My cleanser is Sorbolene Cream in a 500ml pump bottle, it lasts me about 4 months (and only costs about $AUD4)
• We have an e-cloth mop which doesn’t use cleaning chemicals
• Our council don’t recycle yoghurt pots, so we buy the largest size and spoon it into a bowl instead
• We try to buy European wine to reduce the impact of the transportation of Australian wine, South American wine etc
• We try to buy fresh produce in season so we can buy locally
• We try to refuse shopping bags where I can, and usually have a bag in my handbag which I can use
• We put on extra layers or open windows instead of turning up the heating/using fans or air-conditioners
• We try to use bars of soap instead of pump soap
• We only run our dishwasher when it is full
• We have a half size dishwasher so use half a dishwasher tablet each time
• We avoid accumulating too much “stuff” We’re culturally conditioned to want a lot of “things” but do we really need a lot of versions of the same items?
• We have a limited supply of tupperware, but use it in place of plastic wrap & plastic food bags as much as possible, we try to use pyrex if possible

Interestingly, we’ve found that by trying to reduce our impact on the environment, we also reduce our impact on our budget.

What do you do to reduce your impact?