If you’re someone who’s fairly new to being green, then it’s necessary to ease into the concept. Quite possibly there are many things that you’ve never considered could be more eco-friendly because it just didn’t occur to you.
In this article, we hope to open your eyes with four quick ideas for how to be greener.
1. Did You Know You Could Recycle Your Mattress?
You’ve seen it before. That old mattress propped up against the side of the house where the owner clearly didn’t know what to do with it and didn’t have a skip out front either.
Local councils understand the problem and now offer collection services for mattresses. Being councils, what they charge runs the gamut from free to £75 depending on where you live. It’s kind of shocking!
Instead, use an eco-friendly service that can arrange to collect the mattress for you. They will dispose of it in a way that’s likely to be far greener than a local council ever could. You can learn more here about the postcode lottery surrounding mattress disposal country-wide.
2. Own a Dog?
When you walk your dog, there’s the troublesome matter of picking up after they’ve ‘done their business’. Usually, dog owners use a random plastic bag. This isn’t very hygienic, and they don’t know how to dispose of it in an environmentally friendly way either.
There are compostable dog waste bags now where the waste bags can be placed in your compost bin. This way, it doesn’t fill up the rubbish bin at the local park and end up in landfill.
3. Donate Unused Items
When you’ve got items in your home that you no longer need, donate them to a worthy cause or to someone else who can make use of them. While you could sell them, dealing with the hassle of multiple people visiting your home to check out the item and haggling over the sale price isn’t much fun.
Instead, offer the item for free or for a minimal price in a classified published in the local rag, on Gumtree.com or a swapping website. Alternatively, donate it directly to a nearby charity shop. They will often have weekly collections with a hire van that covers your area and can collect the item within just a few days. Look at the Charity Retail site to find the most local charity shop to you.
4. Do You Really Need a Replacement?
We’ve gotten into the habit of replacing still current technology with the latest, greatest thing. It’s an expensive, bad trend with people filling up landfills with old tech that is still functional, very usable, and suitable for the task. Nevertheless, we encourage new production and pollution from factories by stimulating demand when buying a new version of an existing product.
This trend is most prevalent in the technology sector, but it happens with furnishings, bedding, kitchenware, and a host of other areas too. Ask yourself: Is it still working? Do I really need to replace this? It avoids replacing technology just for the sake of it.
Once you start down the path of being greener, it’s hard to stop. You’ll begin seeing lots of new ways to do more for the environment. Often, that means not doing something any longer, as much as it does introducing new behaviours.
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