2019 has been a great year for us environmentally. I don’t proclaim to know it all, nor do I think we are doing everything we can in reducing waste. However we are getting there one step at a time, I think. With the end of the year, I thought it would be a good time to share my Eco changes of 2019.
Eco changes of 2019
One of the most recent changes we are introduced to our household is that of fresh fruit and vegetables. The boys have always had access to fruits and veg to eat however they were all in plastic packaging. We have a box delivered fortnightly of plastic-free vegetables, fruit and salad, including Cucumber!! It has worked wonders on reducing shop bought items that are either in plastic wraps or netting.
Another change we made was to create homemade toilet fizzers to keep our toilet clean. They are really easy and simple to make and a great way to reuse plastic chocolate moulds. The recipe can be found here.
Probably one of the most really useful changes we introduced was straws! Straws hit the headlines this year as a lot of restaurants/cafes ditched plastic for a more reusable/sustainable option. We opted for stainless steel straws which also came with a small straw cleaner brush too! There are such a variety of different reusable straws available to buy (or even make if that’s your thing) from bamboo to silicone and even glass.
2019 was also the year I became more conscious of our food waste. Planning our meals a little better-made shopping not only cheaper as I stuck to what we needed but it also reduced our overall waster. I began becoming a little more savvy with leftovers too! Such as freezing lemon slices for drinks and prepping leftover veg for the freezer to make midweek meals slightly quicker. Our local council have a food waste bin (I think most UK councils have them now) and it has been refreshing to see that getting smaller and smaller each week. I would love to have our own compost going but as we don’t have grass and very few plants there isn’t much point.
Another change is to save our glass jars, such as pickled onions, tomato passata etc and reuse them as drinking jars. I want to spend 2020 looking at making our own pickled onions and learning to seal jars for longevity and freshness too. There are a few goals I want to meet for 2020 which I will share in another post, however I hope you get some inspiration from our simple changes to make your own.
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