Five small changes we can make to help the environment

You might feel like it’s impossible to help climate change on your own, but there’s actually lots of small changes you can make which all contribute to making a huge difference. We only have 11 years left to prevent irreversible damage from climate change – it’s time to start making a difference.

Have a read below as we guide you through five easy things you can be doing to help combat the change in our climate.

1. Reduce your carbon footprint

Reducing your carbon footprint is easy. Picking up some groceries from the shop around the corner? Walk rather than drive. Not using an electrical device at home or work? Unplug it. Is it a nice day? Dry your clothes out on the washing line. Have leftover food from a meal? Don’t waste it – freeze it and eat it up another day. Choose local and organic foods to save transportation.

There are so many little things you can do to reduce your carbon footprint. You can find out how big your environmental footprint is here. 

2. Eat less meat and dairy

Our current meat and dairy consumption has a huge impact on the earth’s environment because of the 5.2 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide associated with the industry. Even cutting down your meat and dairy consumption by half can make a huge difference.

3. Use reusable bags and cups

Cut out as much plastic as possible and use re-usable bottles instead. Plastics not only take up to 1,000 years to degrade, but it also usually ends up in landfills, waterways and oceans. It also contaminates the water that beautiful ocean creatures live in. So next time you grab yourself a coffee from Starbucks, pick yourself up a re-usable cup rather than a plastic one. It makes all the difference.

4. Stop wasting water!

Many people don’t know that you can actually get water-saving devices for FREE from your water supplier. This includes ‘save a flush’ toilet devices, which reduces the amount of water flushed away – up to 5,000 litres! Other devices are designed to mix water with air and have timers to cut down water used in showers.

5. Ditch the fast fashion

It’s very easy to pick up cheap, trendy items of clothing which you only expect to last you one season – but these types of clothes that go out of style quickly are very quickly dumped in landfills. Buy high quality clothes which are going to last and can be given to charity shops when you’re finished with them. Most fast fashion also comes from overseas, so cutting down on shipping will also reduce fossil fuels.