40 Tips for Eco-Friendly and Zero Waste Lifestyle

Here are 40 tips for making your house more eco-friendly by minimalising the waste you produce. 

1. Print on both sides of paper. Often you don’t really need a clean sheet of paper, so use older pieces, for drawing or making notes.
2. Walk, ride a bike or take a public transport to get to work. It’s much more eco-friendly than using your own car.  
3. Make your monitor brightness lower. It will save energy on your device. 
4. Turn your computer off overnight. 
5. Pick up your dog’s feces around town. Nobody wants to step on that while walking. And dog’s droppings also creates pathogens in the air. Use biodegradable bags to collect  it. 
6. Try to avoid palm oil. 
7. Try to buy food with no packaging, or minimal packaging.  
8. Instead of retail therapy, do something else! Go on a walk, take a yoga class, meet up with a friend.  
9. Repurpose stale bread.  
10. Make your own dry shampoo to save water  between washes. 
11. Surround yourself with items that serve multiple purposes to streamline and cut  out  excess junk. 
12. Bring reusable bags with you when you shop. If you left them at home, turn around and get them! After forgetting them once, you won’t do it again.  
13. Try canning in order to preserve your  food.  
14. Use bar soap instead of liquid soap, it tends to come with less packaging.  
15. Swap disposable pads and tampons for cloth pads or a menstrual cup.  
16. Ask for no straw in your drinks when out on the town. 
17. Don’t leave your house without a reusable water bottle. 
18. Always say no to free promotional items. They tend to be cheap and break easily. 
19. Get a library card to support your local economy.  
20. Donate unused and unwanted  items in good condition to support the second-hand industry.  
21. Think second-hand first when purchasing something. 
22. Swap your plastic toothbrush for a bamboo toothbrush.
23. Turn old sheets, clothes and towels into handkerchiefs, rags, napkins, and cloth bags.  
24. Take shorter showers – save water. And buy a water-saving shower-head. 
25. Turn off the tap when it’s not in use! You can waste more than 10 liters of water when you brush your teeth and don’t switch off the water. 
26. Fix leaks as soon as possible.
27. Buy food that you will definitely eat in the next few days.
28. Buy products in eco-friendly packages, like paper or glass, but not plastic.
29. Feed the birds with cereals during the winter.
30. Buy fruits and vegetables from local farmers and vendors. They contain less harmful chemicals.
31. Donate food you don’t want to eat unless it’s out of date.  
32. Use a compost  heap.
33. Cook food yourself instead of buying ready meals. 
34. It’s better and less expensive to buy good-quality cookware once instead of buying low-quality things many times.
35. Don’t use disposable tableware. 
36. Keep water in glass bottles, not in plastic ones (during long-term storage they release harmful substances). 
37. Buy an eco bag and go shopping with it.
38. Recycle what you can (you can also read our previous post about recycling).
39. Use energy saving lamps instead of filament ones.
40. Never release helium balloons outside because they can fly very far away and harm or kill the birds, turtles, fish and even whales.