Collectively, small lifestyle changes can make a huge impact on the environment–and your life. Looking for happiness and health? What’s good for the environment is also, it turns out, great for you. Here’s a collection of tips from the No Impact community.
I cook at least one big pot of beans every week. Buy dried beans in bulk to minimize shipping costs and packaging. Pick over and rinse, then cook in a slowcooker until tender. Using the slow cooker uses the least amount of electricity this side of a solar cooker. My slowcooker holds two pound of dried beans or 20 servings of cooked beans. That’s 27 cents a serving for organic beans and 15 cents for conventionally grown beans. The beans taste better than canned ones, with better texture and no tinny flavor. Use the cooking liquid to make broth or more nutritious oatmeal. Replace meat-based meals to reduce your carbon footprint.
Freeze the beans you don’t use that week. After a few weeks, you’ll have many kinds of beans to choose from to make everything from red beans and rice to hummus to black-bean soup.
This post was submitted by Linda Watson.
No car, we use common transportations;
We use to eat and buy organic;
We buy only the essential producted in France or in European countries;
We choose only vegetables an fruits by season and producted in our country;
We use to cook ourself and don’t buy speed food;
I do not eat meal, my husband and my daughter only during the week-end.
We sometimes eat fish never more than once by week and only protected fishes;
We do not buy Coca or others products from big firms;
We switch off all the electric systems each evening;
We use candles often as possible;
We try to explain our decisions and why we do what we do at others people around us;
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This post was submitted by KIEFFER.
We have seperated our trash. We are recycling. We use the plastic storage totes, one goes next to the trash can, three in the garage. Once the one in the house is full, we take it to the garage and seperate into paper, plastic, and cans. We have reduced our need for trash cans. We used to have three cans every week, we are now down to one. It is easy to do, just takes a little more effort.
This post was submitted by Jessica.
I can’t say enugh about them. We bought 2 dozen, along with wraps and used them for 3 children. Afterwards we sold the wraps for 1/2 original price and use the cloth diapers all over the house. Haning them in the sunn natually bleaches them and baking soda gets them very clean.
3 kids + over 6000 diapers changes=$60 and no landfill waste!
This post was submitted by Melissa.
You can make one bottle of liquid fabric softener last for months with a 5-gallon bucket, some water and a couple of sponges. First empty the bottle of fabric softener into the bucket. Fill the bottle with water and empty that into the bucket. Repeat the second step 2 more times. Mix. Throw in a couple of sponges and cover the bucket. Next time you dry your clothes in the dryer, squeeze out the excess liquid from one of the sponges and throw it into the dryer with the clothes like a dryer sheet. After the load is dry, put the sponge back in the bucket and reuse it on the next load. For towels, I use 2 sponges so they get extra soft. It works just as good as adding the liquid to the rinse cycle and better than a dryer sheet.
This post was submitted by Andrea.