7 Ways to Reduce Your Carbon Footprint
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Around here we’re always looking for way to reduce our carbon footprint and use less plastic. The Earth has a big trash and plastic problem and we want to do our best towards contributing to fix it. Did you know about the plastic island that’s 3 times the size of France and 2 times the size of Texas?
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Here are some of the ways that we work on this-
1. Eco-Friendly Laundry Detergent
We’ve started using Earth Breeze laundry detergent sheets. You just use one sheet per load of laundry. The awesome thing about this is that the packaging doesn’t have any plastic, so you’re not filling the landfills with laundry jug plastic. Instead, it has a biodegradable package.
Get them here.
2. Bamboo toothbrushes
We got our bamboo toothbrushes from Giving Brush. We have the Rainbow Themed Eco-Friendly Giving Brush. It’s usually $20 for one, but right now you can get them for free! This is such a cool toothbrush since it is made out of bamboo instead of plastic. Plastic never biodegrades and is so bad for our environment. I love the look of this brush. The rainbow bristles are so fun and unique. I think the bamboo looks really pretty too.
The Giving Brush has a few other bamboo, eco-friendly products. They have a free Eco-Friendly Bamboo Straw, and Eco-Friendly Giving Brush that comes with white, black, or tan bristles, and a bamboo toothbrush holder.
This company was started when one of the co-founders was surfing and saw a ton of plastic toothbrushes floating around as garbage in the ocean. The ocean has a big plastic problem that needs to be worked on. The owners of the Giving Brush have a goal to replace 1/4 of plastic toothbrush users with bamboo toothbrushes.
The bamboo that is used for these products is 100% organic with no added pesticides or chemicals. It’s coated in a natural wax. Bamboo is very sustainable and can grow very fast. If it’s in the right conditions, it can grow 4 feet in one day. The bamboo will not grow bacteria on it after getting wet.
The type of bamboo used to make these is moso bamboo. Pandas do not eat this kind of bamboo, so these products aren’t taking food away from pandas. Another reason I love these is because they are vegan. The bristles are plant-based.
3. Reusable grocery bags
This is such an easy thing to do. Buy a few reusable grocery bags and keep them in your car for when you go to the grocery store. At first, we kept forgetting to bring our bags. So what we do is after we unload all the groceries, we put the bag right by the door so we can’t miss it on our way out to the car. These bags are really cheap. We got some from our local grocery store that were only 99 cents each.
This saves you from using tons of plastic grocery bags. I will admit though, self-checkout can be a little more annoying when you use a reusable bag because it always thinks there’s an item that shouldn’t be there.
4. Not using produce bags
I’m so used to grabbing a little plastic bag to put my produce in, but at some point I realized that I didn’t really need it. I always throw them away once we get home anyway. I think they can be kind of nice for things like lettuce or broccoli, but your limes and apples really don’t need to go in a bag.
If you like using these bags though, you can get reusable ones. These mesh produce bags are $13.97 for a set of 9.
5. Don’t use straws
There’s a really sad video of a turtle with a plastic straw stuck in its nose. It’s horrible to watch and this needs to stop. Watch, but only if you’re brave enough!
Do we really need to use straws anyway? They’re convenient, but they’re not worth what they’re doing to the environment. Starbucks just made new lids that don’t require straws. I hope more companies get on board with doing this.
6. Reducing use of plastic utensils
It can be hard to not use these because sometimes they are the only utensil option at a restaurant. If you’re taking food to go and eating it at home, don’t take them. You can use a fork at home instead. There are biodegradable forks and utensils you can get though. These are a really cool option.
7. Recycle
When possible, it is always good to recycle. Some people have recycling bins at home that get picked up by the city. If you don’t, do some research to find a recycling center near you.
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