It feels like warnings about the world we live in are everywhere, and they all come with instructions on how to live a better life. However, living in modern society is rarely as simple as these instructions assume. It can feel impossible to move without creating waste in some way or releasing nasty fumes into our sky. Everything is a risk; the Airmiles on your groceries, the use of energy in your home, the plastic packaging around your deliveries. Yet there are some simple steps you can take to help reduce this waste and live a more minimalist lifestyle. Follow the basic steps below to start reducing your footprint in the world, and live in harmony with the space around you.
Groceries
The two single best things you can do to improve your grocery habits are to shop at zero-waste stores or to grow your own produce. Of course, a home vegetable patch may not be possible for some, but even a windowsill selection of herbs and leaves can hugely reduce your need for the mass-grown, pesticide-treated cuttings sold in the superstore plastic bags. Failing this, research your local zero-waste grocery store. This is a brilliant way to cut down on your plastic waste, and they often source their products from local growers and producers, cutting down the air miles from imported vegetables.
Home
A big house can mean larger electricity bills, and therefore far greater emissions, and the ability to accumulate more waste than you know how to deal with! Minimalist living can mean smaller living – and smaller doesn’t have to mean less desirable. If you’re looking to buy or move house, make sure to consider the potential of condos as stylish living spaces that don’t create as much waste as a regular house. Apartments can be beautiful spaces, with plenty of sunlight and fresh air, and the ability to live with a much smaller footprint. You will also be sharing heat with space above and/or below you, which can further help minimize the cost and waste of heating your home. Once you have moved in somewhere, you can also look at other ways to keep your home waste-free and minimize your footprint.
Online
As a nation, we are obsessed with online shopping. By 2023, it’s expected that 91% of the country’s population will be online shoppers (that’s over 300 million people)! The current figure stands at 69%, which is already enormous. However, shopping online is a huge contributor to waste. It doesn’t only involve the packaging your items come wrapped in, but the process of delivery itself, driving products across the country sometimes several times, from depot to warehouse to postal service to doorstep, in order for them to reach their final destinations. Of course, the occasional online purchase may be inevitable, but if you can limit your online orders and shop locally as much as possible, you will be going a long way towards living a minimalist and waste-free lifestyle.
Clothes
First of all, the clothes are great, and the feeling of wearing new clothes is even better. They can make you feel amazing and boost your self-confidence – plus they are an expression of your personality, and how you display that to the world! Yet the clothing industry is also hugely wasteful, and some companies unethical in how they source and create their clothing products. It can be really hard to know where to shop, as most companies claim to be operating in eco-friendly and ethical ways, whilst hiding the less savory aspects of their production. Good On You is an amazing company that does some of that work for you and recommends where to buy from for the most sustainable fashion. Thrift shops are also great places, and spending an afternoon exploring them to find one amazing piece can be an incredibly rewarding and fun activity. So stop giving all those high street brands your hard-earned cash, and start thinking about clothes a bit more holistically – your style will thank you, and so will the planet!
Conclusion
Of course, being able to enact all these suggestions at once is a monumental task, and would require some pretty big lifestyle changes. Don’t worry about that – you don’t need to put all that pressure on yourself. Instead, build up the changes one at a time, leaving anywhere from a couple of months to a year for one habit to bed in before trying to change the next. After all, saving the world is a long-term process, and you can’t do everything overnight.
