Sustainable/green lifestyle habits

Curious to what other peoples environmentally conscious lifestyle habits are. I try to make many small lifestyle changes or habits to reduce my overall impact on our planet.

My examples:

• Navy showers
• Flexitarian diet (specifically trying to eat less red meat)
• A/C generally never below 27 in summer and never above 21 in winter
• Cycling/walking instead of public transport (especially for work commute)
• Renting cars instead of owning
• Now I'm starting to think about how I can buy certain products (such as shampoos, soaps etc. with less plastic/packaging, without paying the 10x 'organic locally sourced green plastic free good for nature' price markup)

I'm keen to get more ideas, so what habits have you established?

 

Good topic, and my passion actually.
To me it all starts from the basics:

1. Only buy things that I really require, food and other materials.
2. I consider my Bins to be sacred; only put things that are really thrash. (I wish the Concil charge people for the size of the Bins)
3. Save water while running hot-taps in the shower
4. Sharing, and lots of sharing: this goes from home, car, food, facility....
5. Use old clothes as rags when cleaning BBQ or kitchen & bathrooms, and refuse to buy paper towel
6. Say No to single-use Disposales (cutlery, plates, trays...)
7. Simple coooking simple food, not processed or re-processed
8. Combine trips into one, no random trips to Bunnings 5-times a day

I can go on and on but that's a start.

 

I use Gumtree a lot to target good quality pre-loved furniture and glassware.

 

Recycling everything

Rarely use car, walk everywhere

Do not buy commercial cleaning products all Home made including deodorant

Solar

Use manual push lawnmower

raw foods where possible

Will add as To this

 

i never sell furniture I give it away, rather it goes to someone who needs it

 

Love this one - I do the same

 

Oh, I lost count of the number of furniture I bought and sold on Gumtree or Facebook (my new favourite), all good/rare quality
The pain with giving out freebies is the Respondents tend not to respect you: they will just do a no-show, instead of letting you know.
So I would put a nominal amount, and sometimes add a few items for free when the right person turns up, esp with kids

My most recent sale is our beautiful classic Italian Couch which needs good (expensive) uphostery. We sold it cheap to a young girl who is learning the skills.

 

Also I learn about the history of the furniture from a sentimental perspective.

I bought a few wooden stools made of raw wood (not polished not stained) and it was from her grandparents who were officers in India in the 1950s. The sellers didn't see these fit into their "modern" lifestyle. So, I bought them with peanuts. I am sure I am owning some good antiques.

 

Compost bin - doggie walk bags are biodegradable potato starch - have been using green bags for decades now - use mesh bags for fruit/vege - recycling bin is always full but garbage is empty (just wish I could trust it was actually being recycled) - solar panels - rarely put on aircon (fan or blanket depending on season) - car share - keep cup ...

 

I go to auctions every month and pick up furniture and renovate, its a great hobbie

Picked up a nice piece for $160 including buyers fees. Auction is all on line, just view 2 days prior.

I now do this for my two girls as I have too many pieces. Its great fun

Auctions and Valuations Perth | Donnelly Auctions

 

- Redcycle all soft plastics;
- Shop at Aldi where I can grab a box to put groceries in;
- Take my own netted bags for produce;
-Make all my own soaps, cleaners, dishwasher tablets etc (transitioning all chemicals out slowly);
- Use beeswax wraps or containers instead of glad wrap;
- Cold wash clothes - only hot wash towels and sheets.
- Solar power

 

Fruit and veggie scraps all go into compost
Reuse old clothes and cardboard boxes in the workshop
Use old faded bedspreads, sheets and curtains as painting drop sheets
When bath towels start to wear out, cut them down and keep using - bath mats, hand towels, keep in the car etc
Use old appliances as veggie gardens
Flush toilet with tank water
Wash car on the grass, not driveway
Open and close curtains/blinds to make best use of sunshine on the glass for winter heating.
Try to take snacks like bananas, tuna and cracker biscuits, with us when we go out to avoid purchasing takeaways

 

-Planted fruit trees and some veggies
- Fish and hunt for food
- Compost
- Recycle and sell our cans at recyclers for beer fund.

 

• 4 chickens
• 10 fruit trees, but no vegies this year
• Recycled water to toilets and garden
• 7.2 star energy rated house so really low heating/cooling costs
  
• Recycle as much as possible, our weekly rubbish is 1/2 medium sized kitchen tidy bag, taking soft plastic packaging back to the bins at Woolworths, this made a big difference in how much went into the rubbish bin
• Community herb garden in the front for us and neighbours. Herbs are one of the most expensive things at the supermarket. If they need 3 sage leaves for a recipe, no need to buy a packet.

 

My next campaign is to get onto the supermarkets to convert the fruit/vege section bags to compostable ... made out of vege/grain starch. I use them in my inside compost bucket and they break down in the outside bin with a week.

Personally I use mesh bags, but many still fill their trolleys with one banana, two apples, three apples and a lettuce already in a bag .... each with their own plastic bag

 

I'm not quite as extreme but generally only run limited AC at night for cooling, heating limited to one room

We've cut down on takeaways (not that we had much anyways), it's noticeable how much less waste goes into the bin. Dang Covid has made us use less prepackaged products

Those things are scarce in winter

Don't confuse the two types of bags .

Having had Australian mixed waste rejected at overseas recycling depots, it simply annoys me that many councils still use mixed waste bins for all recyclables because they're cheaper for the community but not for the environment

My worms are loving it.

NSW instituted some highly bureaucratic system which credits the items against the manufacturers. Basically, if your cans or bottles are crushed and the bar code can't be read by the machine, it's rejected.

The machine costs $$$$, uses power for the fancy conveyors inside, take an inordinate length of time to digest each item which must be individually fed into the hole (I've got better things to so than stand around slowly feeding bottles and cans into a machine at a slow rate). What ever happened to the Scouts, the big trailer & set of scales?

I like that idea. Mask up, drop off and run

 

These are specific bins for recycling soft plastics. I'm not dumping it in their rubbish.

 

This was pretty extreme but....

During the big drought in the Noughties when Brisbane dams were heading down to about 15% capacity, I cut off my long hair so that when I was washing it in the shower, I didnt use any more water than necessary.