How to be more eco conscious with small changes everyone can do
Today, April 22nd is Earth Day, a day set up 50 years ago to raise awareness about environmental issues and to encourage people to live more carefully on this planet of dwindling resources.
While annual events like this are a great way to spread a message and increase awareness, we all have a responsibility to do what we can for the environment - our environment - every day. Living consciously, being careful with what we use, reusing and recycling, and encouraging others to do the same, is something that we can all do. Change starts with you. You can make a difference in your own way, and what you do will have a greater impact than you may think. Your actions do make a difference, and you’ll be setting an example to others who may also then choose to do more. Lots of people making small changes soon add up to one big shift. So start spreading those ripples!
To give you an idea of how easy it can be, here are some of the environmentally friendly things we've done (and continue to do) at Relaxscape to make it Earth Day every day. We're not claiming to be eco warriors or leading environmentalists, but we care about the world we live in and the world we are going to leave behind for others. We hope that by sharing these simple actions, it will help people to see how easy it can be to incorporate some of them into their daily routines, without having to make too many changes to their normal life.
- We restored an old house rather than building a new one from scratch
- We re-used what we could, rather than buying everything new
- When we had to buy things, we bought second-hand whenever possible
- We used natural materials that are low impact on the environment where possible
- Our electricity supply is 75% renewable energy, soon to be 100% and we use LED lightbulbs
- Our water is heated by the sun and by wood mostly collected from our land
- We clean and irrigate our land by water from our wells and waste water
- We grow our own vegetables and fruit organically
- We don’t use any pesticides or buy food that has been grown using them
- We compost
- We try to eat and shop local and seasonal as much as possible to reduce the carbon footprint of where our food comes from
- While we do believe in eating a varied and balanced diet, we don’t eat meat - animal farming has a big impact on CO2 and ozone levels and so when we do serve it for guests, we source responsibly farmed products
- That goes for fish too, and we avoid palm oil and soya products altogether
- We use natural green cleaning products and toiletries (and cosmetics) and loo rolls made from recycled paper
- We recycle everything we can but try to use less packaging in the first place, and do not buy single use plastic, or one-use disposable items
- We let our creepy-crawlies be!
- We plant trees and native plants that will attract bees and other wildlife and clean the air inside with house plants
- We dry our washing using the sun and wind, not energy-greedy tumble dryers
- While we respect that everyone has their own views and approach, we gently try to encourage others to embrace some of these small steps too.