6 Ways to be More Eco Friendly In and Around Your Home

It’s never too late to start doing more eco friendly things in and around your home. As the cold months are looming or in some places not so cold, there are ways to make your living healthier, sustainable and reduce unnecessary wastes and remove toxins from your home and life.

It’s necessary to maintain efficiency in your home year round and not wait for things to deteriorate. By then, of course, it’ll be too late and you’ll find you’ll have a big expense to deal with.

6 Ways to be More Eco Friendly In and Around Your Home

1. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
Reduce, reuse and recycle. Follow these 3 R’s and you’re on your way to being green. When it comes to reusing items, use your imagination and creativity. Even though you don’t want to end up being a pack rat, save some glass jars or empty toilet paper rolls for craft ideas for the holidays. You can also collect these and give them to your child’s school for fun projects. Look for other things that you could put to use in your home or garden.

2. Be Less Wasteful
Think of ways you can reduce your garbage loads. When you go shopping, bring your own reusable bags and if you forget, ask for paper bags instead of plastic. When shopping for gifts look for less packaging or buy environmentally friendly products. Support your local artisans by buying homemade products. For wrapping gifts, use gift bags, jars, boxes, baskets etc. You can use extra fabric for making bows and ribbons.

3. Energy Efficient Products
When replacing your old appliances look for energy efficient ones. Using these types of appliances will lower your utility bill and it’s better for the environment. You’ll also save more if you run a full, but not overloaded dishwasher, clothes washer and dryer.

Switch your lights to Light Emitting Diode (LED). LED is used in many string indoor and outdoor Christmas lights. They are durable, mercury free, cool (they don’t get hot), extremely energy efficient and they last longer than compact fluorescent lights (CFL) or incandescent.

4. Compost
You can make or buy a compost bin to make rich nutrient soil for your garden. You can put grass clippings, leaves, egg shells, fruit and vegetable scraps, coffee grounds, tea leaves, newspaper, weeds, and garden plants. The compost should be moist and it should be turned every few weeks with a pitchfork or shovel to aerate.

5. Buy Local
When you buy locally grown foods, you’re saving money. You’re not paying for products to be shipped, thus passing on to you lower prices.

6. Natural Cleaning Products
Instead of buying cleaning products that are made with chemicals; you can make your own cleaning solutions.

Baking soda is a neutralizer and deodorizer. That’s why a box is found in the fridge and freezer. You can sprinkle it in shoes and used in other smelly places. It’s great also for cleaning the bath tub and oven.

Vinegar is an all-purpose cleaner. It’s a disinfectant and deodorizer. Mix with water, use it to clean your toilet bowl; cuts grease on stainless steel, removes scum and hard water stains in bath tubs and sinks and cleans the floor. Don’t worry; your house won’t smell like vinegar because the smell dissipates when it dries.

Lemon juice refreshes, disinfects and deodorizes. Use lemon juice in your laundry and your whites and colors will look awesome. A lemon slice will sanitize your chopping board; lemon juice and water solution will disinfect your cooking surfaces and nuking a bowl of sliced lemons in water will neutralize the odor in your microwave and make food splatters easier to remove.

These are just a few tips. You can find many more homemade, natural cleaning solutions on the web.

The bottom line is that we can be good stewards with what God gave us. He created this planet for us to enjoy… not destroy.

“The earth is defiled by its people; they have disobeyed the laws, violated the statutes and broken the everlasting covenant. Therefore a curse consumes the earth; its people must bear their guilt. Therefore earth’s inhabitants are burned up, and very few are left.” – Isaiah. 24:5-6

Copyright © Lara Velez, Moms of Faith, All Rights Reserved