Simple Tips To Help Save Environment And Money!

There was a time when we grew up in sprawling houses surrounded by nature. The piles of garbage used to be small and the size of the houses big. As we grew older, consumerism rose too, bringing with it materialism and the tendency to buy more than we could consume. The piles of garbage outside cities and towns grew higher. As we moved to shoebox-sized apartments in massive apartment complexes, the environment outside deteriorated, pollution, smog and trash grew. All of us, need to make changes in our lifestyle to leave a liveable world for the future generation. 

While sustainable living is the ultimate aim, the following is a simple list of things to help you take baby steps towards it. These tips will not only help ease the pressure on our mother Earth but also help you in saving money!  

• If you have a balcony, use part of it for growing a kitchen garden. By having a kitchen garden and working in it, you will also have a stress buster right at home. There is nothing more satisfying than watching the fruits of your labour grow. You can also rope the rest of the family and garden together. This will bring the family closer and also help children in learning to respect nature. Some of the plants that can be grown easily are herbs, chilli, ladyfinger, tomatoes etc. If you want to go a step further, then maybe you can ask your building RWA for a patch for a communal garden. This will bring the whole community also closer. 

• Segregating waste is one of the basic steps for helping the environment. Rather than dumping the waste in one bin, try and separate dry and wet waste. Recyclable materials can be sorted separately to be dropped off at specific recycling centres. If you want to go a step further, try composting kitchen scraps. There are a plethora of options now to help you compost the kitchen scraps. This saves the kitchen scraps from filling the landfills, plus it provides you with organic manure that will keep your plants in the pink of health.

• Use solar lights for your balconies and outdoor areas. Solar lights not only look good but also save you the hassle of wires and plugs. Moreover, solar lights will help you save on your electricity bill too!

• All of us use RO systems in our houses, and they are one of the biggest culprits in terms of wastewater generated. About 3 litres of water is used to produce 1 litre of drinkable water. Considering India is fast becoming a water-scarce country, rather than letting that water go down the drain ( literally and figuratively), that water can be reused. The wastewater can be filled up in buckets and used for moping, cleaning cars/balconies, and even as water for flushing toilets.

• At the start of the academic year, before buying a new set do check if there are any unused notebooks left from the previous year that can be reused. For some notebooks, if only a few blank pages are left, then they can be torn out. I bind them all together to make a new notebook that can be used as a rough notebook. Similarly, for pages printed only on one side, I save them to be used as rough paper/practice sheets.  

• Turn off the appliances when not in use. Did you know that even when appliances are in standby mode, they draw electricity? Most of us leave our Television, kettle, microwave, geyser etc. on standby for ease of use. By turning the appliances off when not in use, you save on the electricity consumed as well as which in turn leads to lower electricity bills. 

• One of the things I did just before the lockdown was that I purchased dry goods in bulk. Unfortunately, since the quantities were large, I was not able to use all of them. Consequently, quite a few of the pantry items had to be thrown as they had expired. This was a lesson for me in avoiding hoarding. Since then I try to buy only what I need. This has helped me in saving money as well as avoiding unnecessary wastage of resources. I have also started making a list of the item I need, which helps me avoid buying unnecessary/ duplicate items.

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Psst I have recently published my first book “Xanadu: Three Souls Searching For Their Paradise” on Amazon, do check it out