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What are you doing to reduce your impact?
Impact can be in many different areas (carbon emissions, energy use, water, plastics, land use, advocacy etc etc). I just want to know something you're doing that helps the environment. It can be big or small, something you've done for a long time, just started or want to implement soon.
I'll start, about 18 months ago I bought a bike and started cycling again. Most of my shorter journeys are now by bike and I'm looking at cycling to work.
Environmental news is often really bleak, lets hear some positive efforts!
I sort of half-do a few things that hopefully add up to something. (Like to think I'll one day transition to a significantly greener life).
Energy
Fashion
Meat
Others
Whitelist (I need a whitelist stay reasonable and sane)
Actual implementation day-to-day looks like:
A big part for me is just being more mindful.
Edit to add: Next year, I plan to start scrutinizing our recycling and garbage and make changes accordingly there. We love baked goods, so I'm guess a huge part will be to start baking more again or going to a real baker with my own containers.
haha, I wish. I actually have sort of curly hair, but really it's super frizzy. My natural hair is actually really unmanageable. I do have some oils (left over from before I made the switch) that I rub in once a month or so (mostly because it smells really nice).
The biggest change I made was to shave all my hair starting a little above my ear down, and cutting the length of the remaining to about my shoulders. I should also mention, I have super thick hair, so no one can even tell I shaved any of my hair (even when I tie it in a low pony tail). So I understand this is probably not something everyone wants to try.
Regarding the itchy scalp, I found that the I had to really commit to the soap bar for my scalp to readjust and produce enough oil naturally to be good. For me, it was about a month in, marked by my hair getting super greasy and then balancing out. Right before my switch, my hair dresser also told me I was shampooing my hair too often, so I really only shampoo every four days or so now, which I do believe helps with scalp.
I tried an actual "Shampoo bar" first and was only so so with it. I now use a hands/body soap bar for dry skin that seems to be working the best. It's Rocky mountain soap co.'s Raspberry Rooibos btw.
Edit to add: I found condition bars to be a waste of time. I tried one and it basically just lasted about three washes.
Edit again to add: I know some people switch their shampoo to bar soap, but still continue using their regular conditioner and that seems to work for them.
np!
I'm really lucky and have a really good hair dresser that I've been seeing since high school. She's super into hair, like it's really her passion. She's also all about safe, natural products and really seems to tailor products to the client. (I use to dye and chemically straighten my hair a lot). I actually haven't told her I'm using bar soap, I think she might freak out :P
And you should start a thread!
have you tried using
argonARGAN oil in your hair? Some folks with curly hair use that after each washing and then after two or three days they'll do a rinse with conditioner to keep the body in while taming the frizz.No I have not. Thanks for the tip, I'll look into it.
ha. Argan --- not argon. :)
But yeah, it should work out well. Curly hair is by far the most difficult hair type to work with.
Thanks! I did do a quick google and it autocorrected for me :P
Could you explain the No buy counter a bit more?
If I'm interpreting it correctly, she means she tries to purchase as little as possible, and resets the counter when she buys something. I could be wrong.
Sure.
At the beginning of the year (end of last year actually), I created a whitelist of things/events I can spend any money on. That's the whitelist I have listed (list of my yearly events not included here).
At the beginning of each month, I plan my month and add reasonable whitelist items as required. For example, concerts (and dinner out beforehand), or if I know I'm managing two major releases at work, I'll add coffee out twice or something.
During the month, I tally all purchases I make, including donations and girl scout cookie type things. I count each "break", so any purchase not whitelisted. I try to be reasonably specific, so if I forgot to include a previously planned event, I give myself a pass. If I had a planned night out, but ended up with ten drinks and four desserts, I include those.
I do basically reset the counter each time a "break" happens as noah suggested. So I know I need to be more mindful if I'm resetting my counter daily for one month.
At the end of the month, I sum up a monetary amount that's for improving my budgeting and I tally the totally number of breaks too.
Oh I get it now that's what the whitelist is for. That's a really clever way of reducing consumption & keeping an eye on finances. Did you come up with it yourself?
No I didn't. I've been trying a few things for about a decade now, and this is just a culmination of that. I read "The Life-changing Magic of Tidying up" a few years ago that really helped me articulate my relationship with my stuff that I extended a bit to my relationship with my spending on eating out, going to concerts and such. That helped me create the whitelist.
A major concept in that book is deciding not what to throw out in your life, but what to keep. So the "no buy" idea is just a way I decided to implement that, for me to remind myself not to buy without thinking. Somewhere along the way, I saw "No buy challenges" and ended up calling it that myself too.
I'm in a similar boat.
I use public transport for work and leisure exclusively, however that's easy in London. I may begin cycling to my new job.
I have a green energy supplier - to the extent of 100% renewable electricity anyway - but, like yourself, I don't know how I could verify this. At least the price is competitive.
I'm pescetarian, however I suspect I'll get closer and closer to vegan as time goes on. Having said that, if someone invites me to a BBQ I'm just going to eat meat, in those limited scenarios there's nothing to be gained. I never order meat in any capacity which I think is the primary point. I am absurdly excited for "fake meat" as I was a big meat-eater in my youth.
For holidays me and my partner fly across Europe a few times a year. I wonder what's more environmentally friendly; two tickets on a flight, or an environmentally-friendly (but practical for long-range driving) car that we only use for this traveling?
Flying is a very intensive form of transport. The car should be better (assuming ICE not electric) if there's 2 people and you drive efficiently. However if you're buying the car then you have to consider that energy is needed to construct it and you wouldn't get much use out of it.
Rail would be much better than either.
I wish I could do something like this but it's just not feasible where I live. I need to own a car, or at least something motor powered, because everything is far away and the public transit in place isn't great (kind of like a snake eating its own tail, I know, by driving my own vehicle I make public transport less viable.) The choice, at least right now, is to take many hours getting from one end of the county to the other, or driving for 20 minutes.
I used to ride a 250cc motorcycle everywhere, but especially where I live it becomes an issue quickly. I live in Florida, so rain is a constant issue. Even if it's not supposed to rain on a given day, there is normally some rain during the day. Also in the summer wearing all of the gear gets really tiring really fast because it's so damn hot.
For the most part I don't drive or ride when I can, I often walk to the nearby Target for most of my grocery shopping needs (or to hang out because there is a Starbucks there that's never busy.) I drive very little. My current car is a 2000 Solara with a V6 and fuel economy isn't great, about 19mpg on average, but (partially because of the crazy big gas tank) I only fill up every two or three weeks.
My impact is already pretty small and I feel I can't really reduce it at the moment.
I'm a single divorced guy, without children, in my late thirties. I sold my car over ten years ago, and my main transportation, even before that, has been cycling. The one thing I can do, is stop eating meat, and that is my current goal. I do pay attention where my food comes from, and I try buy stuff that is locally produced, mainly from local independent farms.
Besides those things, there are smaller ones. Like always bringing my own bag to the store, always using my own drink bottle, and always recycling everything I can.
The thing is that I smoke, and I think that one fucking idiotic vice negates all the other things I try to do right, just because it's so unnecessary, harmful and costly. And yes, I've tried to quit dozens of times.
I'm an easily addicted person.
Edit. Grammar & details (English is not my native language. It's hard sometimes)
I do several things, ranked in order of effect on my carbon footprint:
I cycle every day, which is sort of the norm here in the Netherlands, as is separating your trash. I've also progressively reduced the amount of times per week when I eat meat, and try and favor poultry and pork over beef. Further goals would be along the lines of eating seasonally as much as possible and using less plastics but that's a tad more complicated.
Honestly, nothing. I don't go out of my way to hurt things, but lowering my impact is just something that is not a priority for me right now, and I find it hard to prioritize. My small changes feel like a drop in an ocean. I know millions of people making small changes can have a big impact, but it's hard to turn that logic into action in my day to day. I recycle and don't litter, and bought a smaller more fuel efficient car, which helps a bit.
The car probably has more effect than you think assuming you don't drive like a maniac!
I am a vegetarian, try to conserve water, and recycle as much as possible. Goal is to one day go fully plant based. cheers!
I vote for the Green Party.
I do a few other things as well; walk to work (less than a kilometre, so no big deal), recycle most of my trash (though I have a nagging suspicion it all gets thrown in the same incinerator), reuse plastic bags until they break, reuse water bottles until they stink, try to buy products made in Europe instead of countries with laxer environmental laws.
But I feel like voting is the big one. If environmentalist politicians gain power, they can enact laws that will make even those who don't care about the environment act in ways that are better for the environment.
Honestly, none of the things I am doing are specifically because I am trying to save the planet. Most of them have been to save me money. Let me give you an example; I drive an electric car. I didn't buy it because it has fewer emmissions (though that was a major plus), I bought it because I found a used Leaf with the luxury package for about the same price as a tiny, bare-bones, under-powered Smart car that was 5 years older than it, and because it has a much lower TCO. Likewise, I avoid using disposable plates and flatware because I don't like buying them all of the time and consume less meat because vegetables and grains are so much cheaper.
I started in the horticultural industry, transitioned to tree planting and then arboriculture for a local government focusing on tree care and habitat creation while maintaining a small nursery of approx 2000 plants at home aimed at erosion control, then moved to an organic ecovillage and started working at a non-profit for Landcare where I am working on ecosystem repair (as well as many other not so important pursuits). I then decided to move my focus to more erosion and soil loss by starting a Vetiver Grass nursery which is about 12 months from completion and I will give away planting stock at 6x less than the current market rate to foster adoption in rural communities.
I believe land degradation, topsoil loss, watershed improvement, and tree planting are probably the best things for me to do to not only reduce my impact but improve what we have. Not eating meat, for example, is important but that's not going to restore the land that meat-eating destroyed. It's best we get out there and do it.
Plus little bits of everything everyone else listed...
I did some snooping on your comment history. Australian, right? Is land erosion a big problem there?
Yes, Australian and it's about the same as everywhere. Some areas close to me are more 'erodible' due to soil composition and water flows but it's the silent threat that is present everywhere. If you prevent erosion, you hold water and nutrient in organic matter higher in the landscape which helps prevent desertification, declining yields, diminishing rainfall, salinity increases, habitat loss etc.
Vetiver is a tropical grass so the subtropics and tropics which tend to get heavy Summer rainfalls gain the most. It's a tool, and a very simple one, that flies in the face of the general thought that only technology or expensive solutions will save us.
Unfortunately, the uptake is low because 'natives are best' but when we don't have a lot of time left, we need to choose the things that work and work well. The native species come later.
Mostly recycling. I sort everything, the only thing that goes into the bin is stuff that I can't clean (and so smells after a while), like that spongy/butcher paper stuff that's in packets of meat to soak up blood or whatever, shellfish scraps, stuff like that. Everything else is sorted and recycled. It's easy in Sweden though, when I lived in Ireland it was a lot more inconvenient and a lot more work.
We cycle when possible, take the train to work instead of driving. We also try to buy locally produced goods. That used to be quite difficult, but it seems to be getting easier in the last few years. Especially where food is concerned, at least you can check the labels in shops now to see where food comes from, so if we can't buy locally produced stuff we can look for the next nearest country. Eating seasonal foods helps a lot. We have also upped our vegetarian meal intake, so now two or three meals a week are vegetarian.
we're going to start buying farm direct meat too soon, but that requires spending a few hundred euros at a time, and we need space in the freezer for it all.
My girlfriend and I just found a service where you buy shampoo and soap, and I'm assuming they have other products, in stainless steel bottles instead of plastic. You swap out the old empties with new full bottles, and they clean and reuse the old bottles. Pretty cool, and a good way to eliminate single use plastics from your life.
Two days a week meat free. I'm a type 1 diabetic and already have to eliminate a lot of foods from my diet, especially processed carbohydrates and to a lesser extent carbohydrates in general. So for me to completely eliminate meat is going to be a tough one. Further, I can cut back on the more egregious meats (beef, pork, etc).
Less travel on planes, not that I was ever a big flyer.
Advocacy- actually taking actions to try to get democrats elected to office, so that we can put forward some legislation that tackles this ridiculously hard problem of climate change. Apparently the republican party has become a party of science deniers. I'm canvassing this sunday for three democratic candidates in my purple state of Missouri.
We participate in beach clean up days and always hike with extra dog bags to pick up trash as we see it. We shop at local markets and farmers markets instead of huge chains and we use cloth bags or recycled bags. We use metal water bottles instead of plastic and try to buy products with minimal packaging. I try to use everything I own until it is no longer usable and fix whatever I can. We turn off all electricity and conserve water as much as we can.
I used to think like that when I had depression. When it turned out that wasn't going to happen, it caused a minor panic. It's really not good to think like that.
Hey man, they are your thoughts. You are the only one who can change them.
I'm not going to say it's easy, because it's one of the hardest things you can do. It took a life-altering catastrophe before I managed it. I had to throw away my old life and forge a brand new one that I saw fit to live.
I'd like to say that it was like being reborn, but frankly that's just feel-good nonsense. Depression isn't something you escape from, it's something you manage. But you can live a life fulfilling enough that you can essentially forget about it for long stretches of time. You will grow and eventually look back to who you are now and think to yourself how much you have changed.
Even if you can't see it right now, I think you would agree that it is better to live a moderate life dedicated to improving your world is a much more worthwhile experience than a short life of helpless misery.
Mostly commute on an electric unicycle now!
Not as much as I probably should be. I don't drive if I can avoid it, but I rarely can since I live in a rural area, and I have a (thankfully smaller) SUV that I can't yet afford to replace. I do bike a fair bit, though more for exercise, and I am working on cutting back my meat intake with the ultimate goal of quitting entirely.
Low impact isn't my intention, it's rather a personal characteristic. I don't have kids and car, live in a small apartment and don't eat much meat. These are the big things. Using a few grams of plastic packaging per day and leaving LED lights on is convenient but probably isn't really impactful comparing to the things I mentioned above.
Don't have children and never plan on having any, and I don't have a car.