For this week’s Lion’s Heart Blog, I’m giving you folks some sustainable tips to incorporate into your daily routine. Although we typically think of volunteering as separate time in our day that we devote to helping others, being sustainable should be a top priority in each of other lives. I’m going to steer clear of the basics we all know, including turning lights off when you leave the room, taking shorter showers, recycling, carpooling, opting for bike riding instead of driving, composting and so forth and give more impactful ways to be sustainable.
The first tip is to try thrifting! Thrifting is essentially buying second-hand clothes. There are dozens of thrift stores from Goodwill to Salvation Army to everything in between. Although it has become a rather popular trend among Generation Z, there are necessary precautions to take to ensure you are being aware while thrifting. First thing is to look at your intentions: recognize that most people don’t buy second-hand because it’s hip or trendy, but because they need clothes and can only afford it a cheaper price. As thrifting becomes more and more popular, people are noticing a rise in prices at their local thrift stores. In turn, people who need the clothes at a cheaper price cannot afford it anymore. In other words, thrifting is definitely a sustainable option as opposed to fast fashion, but being mindful about how much you buy while you thrift, what exactly you are buying (ie. winter coats tend to be sparse in the winter, so if you can afford to get it at another location that may be better), and where you live (suburban and urban thrift stores tend to have too much clothes whereas scarcity becomes an issue in low-income and rural neighborhoods) is just as important.
Another suggestion is to go paperless! Now, hear me out. Sure, at one point in time we probably could never have imagined going a paperless route, but several of my teachers adopted this mode of learning during the pandemic. My teachers swapped physical handouts for documents posted on Google Classroom. Instead of turning in 20+ page papers in person, I submitted assignments online. I no longer took notes in humanities on paper, but rather on my computer. I’m not saying to completely ditch paper because I, for one, could never solve math equations on a tablet, but being conscious of your paper usage and where you can limit it is important. Prior to this year, I would have taken English notes in a composition notebook and filled up maybe three throughout the year, which I would just end up throwing out anyways. Instead, this year I could take notes online at a faster speed while being more environmentally conscious. I do recognize that dozens of studies prove that one remembers information more when they write it out, but just being aware of other options is important!
This next idea is a little less heard of. Did you know plastic toothbrushes take over 400 years to decompose? Bamboo toothbrushes, on the contrary, are 100% biodegradable and antimicrobial. Next time you are in CVS or Walmart looking for another toothbrush consider swapping out plastic for bamboo. Similarly, each year millions of cotton swabs end up in the ocean, which drastically harms our environment. Instead of opting for single-use items, check out reusable alternatives (ie. LastSwab) at your local pharmacy as well. The idea of reusing goes for most everything from shopping bags to water bottles and from clothing to shipping containers. You can even buy recycled toilet paper!
Although I called them basics in the first part of the blog, I’d like to reiterate that they are basics for a reason. All these little things, such as using reusable lunch boxes instead of paper bags and taking a twenty minute shower instead of a forty minute shower, really do help. It’s easy to think that our actions don’t matter because the world is such a huge place with so many people, but I’m here to tell you that they do. I hope after reading this blog you take the extra steps to reach out other resources and really think about the ways you can incorporate sustainability into your lifestyle. Until next time, stay safe, be sustainable, and enjoy summer!
To learn more about how you can be sustainable make sure to check out these organizations down below:
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