Baby Steps to Eco-Friendly

Many believe that becoming eco-friendly means making too many sacrifices or spending a lot of money. Neither choice needs be the case at all; all you need is to make small changes to start. Once you get in the habit, you can add more and more to lessen your personal environmental impact.

The easiest way to start is at the grocery store. Instead of using the excuse that you always forget to bring bags of your own, just concentrate on making this a habit before you tackle other areas in your life. You don’t even need to buy the fancy bags that come from a particular store. Any reusable tote works great for groceries. If you need to buy a bag, they are usually only from 0.99-1.99. Most grocery retailers take five cents off of your bill each time you use them so a bag pays for itself within a few months, depending on how often you go. You can often get a free tote bag from bookstores, conventions, and other events that you attend so you may not even need to buy any bags. After you make this part of your routine, stop taking bags from everywhere else. You don’t really need that fancy shopping bag from Nordstrom or Victoria’s Secret do you? Sure, you may take your lunch to work in it once or twice, but once it wears out it just gets discarded.

And speaking of lunch – get a reusable lunch box! Reusing your plastic grocery bags for your lunch does not count as recycling. Yes, you may get a few uses out of it, but they end up in the trash entirely too fast. Many employers discourage stacking them in the community refrigerator also since they don’t stack well and often get forgotten. Remove the plastic altogether and grab a lunch container for a few dollars. You can sometimes score these for free as well at sporting events, work symposia, and university events.

Take this small challenge as your baby steps to becoming eco-friendly – try to eliminate taking bags from the grocery store first. After this becomes a habit, stop taking bags from any store. Leave a reusable bag in your purse, briefcase, or car so that you always have one. After you have mastered this, if you don’t already, take your lunch with you in reusable containers.

Next, if you are really up for a challenge, remove water bottles from your life. Try a reusable container for your water and fill with either home delivery or tap (depending on where you live). I found a reusable bottle here that filters for you. There are many others like it, which were originally manufactured for campers.

What other ideas do you have to ease into an eco-friendly lifestyle?