Sustainability is the foremost thing that’s needed in our life nowadays. The earth has entered into the next mass extinction phase and this time we are in danger along with other critical species just like the dinosaurs were millions of years ago.
All this has happened because of the activities of a single species – Human Beings.
On World Health Day, your best bet for the world and the environment, is to have a SUSTAINABLE LIFESTYLE.
One that will reduce the environmental burden of our activities, that is, our carbon footprint. The world first set out for this sustainable lifestyle concept in the 1992 earth summit when we initiated the concept of sustainable development.
It took more than 2 decades to make a sustainable development roadmap and finally announce sustainable development goals to be achieved by 2030.
The key ingredient of this is to replace every non-environment-friendly thing in our life with eco-friendly sustainable alternatives. This would reduce the carbon emission potential of everything in our life, thereby making way for sustainable living.
Here’s how we can achieve such a sustainable lifestyle. All of these goes into the effort of reducing our global carbon footprint to 2 tons of CO2 per year by 2050. This is necessary to curtail the 2 degree Celsius rise in temperature which will further accelerate the effects of global warming and climate change.
1. Eat Organic Food, Reduce Meat
The biggest carbon emitters come from the food that we eat, specially meat products. This impact is more if we are eating imported and processed food items. The way towards a sustainable and healthy life starts with eating local produce. Here “think global act local” is the key. Opting for organic food produced in a natural and chemical-free way that doesn’t involve much processing, high-end manufacturing, transportation and packaging holds the key. Each of these processes adds more carbon emission potential to your food.
So, the correct way is to grow food on your rooftop garden or your balcony along with the purchase of locally produced organic food.
2. Buy Fewer Clothes, Buy Organic Clothing
Next to food, it’s the clothes we wear which need to change. Most of the fabrics we wear undergo heavy processing and manufacturing which requires gallons of water. While fabric materials like polyester, georgette, nylon etc are harmful to the environment because of their non-biodegradable plastic nature, seemingly eco-friendly fabrics like cotton are not so far behind either. A simple pair of jeans or cotton shirts use gallons of water to be made.
We surely can’t waste that much water to fulfil our never-ending need for fashionable clothes. The only way to make way for a sustainable life is sustainable fashion which starts with judicious buying of clothes, restricting too much purchase. Even if you have to buy new clothes, go for sustainable clothing or organic clothing made from natural sources.
Some have even recycled and reused fabric waste and other kinds of waste to make sustainable clothing, opt for those.
3. Build A Sustainable Kitchen
The way to a sustainable life starts from a sustainable kitchen. The heart of the home lies in its kitchen and when it turns eco-friendly our life turns eco-friendly. The conventional products that we use in our kitchen such as food containers, storage jars, utensils, cutleries, trash bags, disposable plates, tissues and napkins – all are harmful for us. Most of these have some form of plastic or Styrofoam which chokes the planet. Moreover, the production of these items requires a huge amount of water, electricity and other resources which adds to its carbon emission potential.
So for sustainable life, we need to switch to eco-friendly products for our kitchen. This includes basic kitchenware like storage jars, bottles and utensils which has readily available clay, ceramics, copperware and other alternatives. We can further reduce plastic pollution by switching to disposable cutleries and plates made of sugarcane, bamboo, seaweed, areca leaf, banana leaf etc. This can be easily broken down and turned into compostables as they degrade in 45-60 days.
Tissue rolls and napkins too have eco-friendly alternatives like those made of bamboo fibres. Similarly, your regular plastic trash bags can be replaced with eco-friendly compostable bags made with corn.
This way we can build a sustainable kitchen.
4. Use Natural Detergents & Bathing Products
The next thing to change in our way to sustainable life lies in our bathrooms. Let’s start with the bathroom, shall we? Everything we use here is toxic to the environment – right from the chemical-laden soaps, shampoos and body lotions to the plastic toothbrushes to the synthetic loofas
So switch to eco-friendly solutions. Instead of commercial soaps, shampoos and body lotions opt for eco-friendly handmade alternatives made using natural cleansers like aloe vera, lavender, charcoal etc. It’s quite safe for use as they seldom react with your skin.
Detergents have the same problem of having toxic chemicals in them and sometimes even plastic elements. So replace them with eco-friendly cleaners, disinfectants and detergents made directly from natural antimicrobial and antibacterial sources like lemon, neem, tulsi, manjistha etc.
The plastic toothbrushes can be replaced with bamboo ones and our synthetic loofahs can be replaced by natural scrubbers.
That’s how you make a sustainable bathroom, an important aspect of sustainable living.
5. Use Natural Cosmetics & Beauty Products
Lastly, your skincare, cosmetics and beauty products need to change to support the environment. Most contain harmful chemicals and parabens which harms the environment.
Switch to eco-friendly face washes, cleansers, moisturizer, lipstick, kajals etc which are made from natural sources in a cruelty-free non-toxic way.
Together all of these speak for an earth-friendly sustainable life where you are living in harmony with other species and not causing any damages to the environment.
So, make way for this sustainable life.
The earth is waiting!
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