Green Solutions to Protect Your Family
Having a sustainable home is a way of protecting your family while teaching them how to handle the responsibility of protecting the environment. Many products that aren’t sustainably sourced can contain harsh chemicals that can irritate the skin and eyes. For instance, cheaply made plastics and metals that are used in some jewelry can cause pain and swelling where they’re worn.
But encouraging your family to live a greener lifestyle also has benefits beyond the walls of your home. Living more sustainably also helps to ensure that all of the nature we have been lucky enough to enjoy will be here for the next generation. Here are some of the ways you can begin to protect your family with a more sustainable lifestyle.
Eco-Parenting
You would be amazed at just how much information kids are taking in at any given moment. Children learn what they live, meaning children are entirely capable of learning to live more sustainably simply by exposure. If your children witness you taking the time to recycle your plastic bottles instead of throwing them in the trash, then they will begin to follow in your footsteps. Children are incredibly perceptive, so your habits and patterns have a major influence on your child’s behavior.
But eco-parenting is more than just leading by example. As your children grow they will be able to understand the impact of their actions at a deeper level. It is important to talk to your kids about the importance of living sustainably. Explain to them how our actions affect the environment in ways that are sometimes irreversible. Talk to your kids about the dangers of pollution, plastic waste, and climate change.
Another way of parenting in an environmentally-friendly way is to cook at home consistently. As previously mentioned children are incredibly perceptive, and kids that grow up ordering food from restaurants frequently will continue this pattern as they age. Encouraging your family to cook at home regularly is beneficial for a few different reasons. It is generally healthier and less expensive than eating out, and it reduces the amount of time you spend driving.
Finally, you should also talk to your kids about the difference between needs and wants. This will encourage them to think critically about what they ask for and by extension, what they purchase when they grow older. Take simple steps to show them how to consume less. For instance, instead of buying DVDs or books, rent them online or borrow them from your local library. This will show your kids that you can still enjoy most of what the world has to offer without creating waste.
Photo by Alena Koval
Recycling
Recycling is one of the most common ways that people do their part in protecting the environment. Many plastic, glass, paper, and metal products can be recycled and repurposed into another product after they have been used. This is typically done by taking these materials to a recycling center, where they are remade into raw materials.
Recycling benefits the environment by reducing the amount of physical waste that ends up in landfills. This is important because most of the trash that ends up in landfills takes years, if not decades, to decompose. Recycling also reduced the amount of natural resources taken from the environment to make new products. For instance, less plastic needs to be made because we can repurpose some of the plastic we’ve already used. This also leads to a reduction in the energy needed to create products and the pollution that generally accompanies it.
But there are other ways of recycling as well. For instance, many people consider donating old clothes to charities or thrift stores to be recycling because the clothing is being bought and used again. This way you can get rid of the old clothes you don’t want anymore and somebody else gets to enjoy new clothes at a great deal. You can also recycle old items by finding a new purpose for them. For example, you could add an old pillow with a sturdy cardboard box to create a bed for a pet.
Buy Locally
You should strive to buy products locally whenever it is possible to do so. This mostly applies to groceries and produce, but it can also apply to other products such as jewelry or clothing. Shopping locally has a few different benefits. Firstly, you get an opportunity to support your local businesses and craftsmen. But local products are also better for the environment because they don’t need to be shipped very far, meaning they don’t contribute very heavily to air pollution.
Ship Packages Sustainably
Online shopping has grown to be incredibly popular because of how cheap and convenient it is. But this convenience can oftentimes come at a cost to the environment. Shipping and delivery services are one of the largest contributors to air pollution because of how much energy it takes to transport products internationally.
However, there are ways to reduce the negative impacts shipping has on the environment without giving up the convenience of online shopping. One simple way of doing this is to use USPS flat rate boxes as often as possible. Flat rate boxes benefit both the person mailing a package and the environment. Because flat rate boxes only charge a steady rate for a package up to a certain weight, they are generally cheaper than other shipping options. Additionally, flat rate boxes allow you to add as many items to a box as you need, so long as the final package comes in under a certain weight. This means that many shipments can be consolidated into one delivery, which saves energy and reduces the amount of air pollution made.
Photo by Agung Pandit Wiguna.
