How To Start Living That Eco Friendly Lifestyle Today
You’ve seen all the social media posts about how the world is becoming a huge garbage dump and the chemicals in our food, cleaning products, personal care products and more are causing cancer, asthma, allergies, and all sorts of terrible diseases. You want to create a safer home and environment for your family but you have no idea where to start.
Put on your green pants because we’re about to discover the eco friendly lifestyle that’s right for you…without pulling your hair out! These tips are going to take out all the overwhelm and make you the most environmentally friendly mom on the block!
What Exactly is an Eco Friendly Lifestyle
While there’s not one concrete definition, the general idea is that you are living a lifestyle that is better for the environment. An eco friendly lifestyle can include a variety of things including:
- purchasing eco friendly products
- using less harmful chemicals
- purchasing products in bigger quantities to reduce packaging
- recycling
- donating used items rather than throwing them away
- walking or biking instead of taking the car
- turning off lights when you leave a room
- choosing reusable produce bags and shopping bags instead of plastic
- refusing single use plastic and choosing reusables instead
The list goes on and on. Check out this FREE downloadable list of over 50 small changes you can make to live a more eco friendly lifestyle.
The Importance of an Eco Friendly Lifestyle
Creating a lifestyle that is easy on the environment and easier on our health ensures that there is a world for our kids and their kids and you get the picture.
I’ve always been a bit of an environmental enthuiast but when I became pregnant with my son, I began to really worry about the chemicals I was putting into and onto my body. At the same time, I also began to wonder where all this trash we generate as a society was going and would go in the future. At some point, we’d have to reach our limit, right?
We all have to do our part, right? So what would I need to start doing?
Why Should We Choose Eco Friendly Products
When you choose eco friendly products, you are choosing products that are made without harsh chemicals that can be harmful for you as well as the environment.
Many of the chemicals used in the products that line our grocery and chain store have been linked to a wide variety of illnesses such as allergies, asthma, endocrine disruption, birth defects, loss of fertility, cancer, skin irritation, neurological disorders, etc.
These chemicals are also washing down our drains and into our rivers, lakes, streams, oceans, etc. harming marine life along the way.
It’s not only trash and litter polluting the waterways but the chemicals are wreaking havoc on the health of everything from fish to coral to sea urchins to dolphins to sea otters and beyond. Their environments are being disrupted which is causing diseases to form and spread.
Ultimately, if we are consuming fish, mussels, shark, any marine animal, these toxins are coming right back to us.
RELATED – Plastic Pollution – One Easy Change You Can Make
When we choose eco friendly products, we are choosing products that are made from ingredients that are less likely to harm us, our pets and our environment.
What Ingredients Should You Look Out For
Label reading can be a challenge because many times, our favorite products include ingredients we’ve never heard of, much less are able to pronounce.
When looking at cleaning and personal care products, some of the ingredients you should avoid are:
- formaldehyde
- 2-Butoxyethanol
- toluene
- ammonia
- chlorine bleach
- fragrance
- phthalates
- quaternary ammonium compounds
- triclosan
- sodium lauryl sulfate
- sodium laureth sulfate
- artificial dyes
RELATED – 5 Harmful Chemicals in Personal Care Products You Should Avoid
When looking at food products, some of the ingredients you should avoid are:
- artificial dyes – any dyes with numbers (blue #2, red #40, yellow #5, etc.)
- BHA – Butylated Hydroxyanisole
- BHT – Butylated Hydroxytoluene
- TBHQ – Tertiary Butylhydroquinone
- natural flavors
These are all petroleum-derived ingredients linked to a whole host of health concerns, especially for children. Natural flavors is a term that covers over 2500 different ingredient combinations, most of which are far from natural.
RELATED – 5 Harmful Food Additives You Need to Avoid
How Does Choosing Reusable Products Make A Difference
We have become such a busy society, convenience is extremely important to just about everyone. However, convenience comes at a cost. Many of the single use products we use today are made of plastic, which doesn’t decompose and less than 10% of it is recycled.
We live in such an exciting time now, filled with so many choices when it comes to reusable or compostable products. When you choose to reuse, you are:
- eliminating the need to recycle
- reducing the need for new raw materials which helps prevent pollution
- save money
- conserve energy
- and more
RELATED – Just Say No – Refuse and Reduce
How to Find Your Eco Friendly Lifestyle Without Losing Your Mind
This isn’t an all or nothing proposition. Your eco friendly lifestyle can be quite different from mine and someone elses. As long as you find the things that work for you and your family, you’re doing a great job. In my opinion, the first step is to assess where you are and what changes you can make and sustain.
Download and print my cheatsheet and check off all the things you are already doing. You might just be amazed with how ‘environmentally friendly’ you already are.
Next, determine what other things you can and want do. Choose a few things you think are easy to implement within the next week and do those.
All the small choices add up to have an amazing, positive impact on our personal health and the health of the environment.
Where Are You In Your Eco Friendly Lifestyle Journey?
No matter if you are starting today or are already including these tips into your daily life, we can all always do more.
Do you have any favorite products you use or tips for how go be more environmentally friendly? We can all learn from each other.
Make it a green day!
Hey there! I’m Heather, a wife and mother of two kids and one fabulous English bulldog. I’m a self-proclaimed earthy girl, slightly nutty about ditching all the toxins in our lives and doing my part to clean up the planet. I’d love for you to join me on my journey over at Finding Our Green Life.
