This post may contain affiliate links. Read my disclaimer to learn more.

---

Living conscientiously with the earth in mind changes your relationship with nature. You become accountable for your actions and what you allow in and out of your home.

Sustainable living is in short reducing one’s carbon footprint by living in ways that bring balance to human’s symbiotic relationship with the earth.

Living sustainably doesn’t have to be difficult or expensive. It’s cost-effective in a lot of ways. This post is a beginner’s guide to sustainable living.

Gardening

If you have land no matter the size put it to good use. One way is by having a garden. Having a garden will cut down on your grocery bill. Plus you’ll get the satisfaction of knowing exactly where your veggies came from and how they were cared for.

Collect water

Set up water collection tanks to use for watering your garden, and other plants or trees. This cuts your water bill down and is better for your plants because there aren’t added chemicals or fluoride in rainwater as there are in tap water.

Water Collection tanks make great additions to any home. This water can also be filtered and used as drinking water. I’ll talk more about that later in this post.

Compost and grow from food scraps

Compost your food scraps and organic materials.

When the organic material breaks down, you’ll be left with nutrient-rich soil that you can use in your garden.

Don’t burn your leaves in the fall. They’ll decompose through the winter and provide vital nutrients to your yard. If you want to collect them.

Did you know you can regrow certain veggies??

You can! This is not only cost-effective but it’s sustainable as well.

You can find my guides for regrowing veggies and composting in my free resource library.

Make homemade Laundry Detergent

Conventional detergents are made with chemicals. These chemicals embed themselves in your clothes and are flushed away with dirty water.
The dirty water from your washer goes through wastewater treatment and back into our waterways. I’ll touch on this more below.

Conventional detergents also break down your clothes and cause skin irritations and allergies.

Check out my post entitled Eco-Friendly laundry detergent for my recipe.

Stop buying & using synthetic materials

Polyester, nylon, and other synthetic materials are causing so many problems for the earth.

When we wash synthetic materials, microfibers are washed away with dirty water. As mentioned above, the dirty water goes through wastewater treatment and back into our waterways. Wastewater treatment only does so much.

---

Also Read: 10 Ways to reduce plastic waste

---

Microfibers have made their way to the ocean, our drinking water, and food and have been found in canned goods and beer!

We are consuming plastic every day. This is hazardous for our health and the health of our families.

The more we refuse to buy and use synthetic materials, the less we’ll be contributing to this pollution and the better our health and the health of the earth will be.

This step is more difficult than you’d think. Synthetic materials are everywhere! I promise you it’s worth it though. Natural materials are so much better for your body as well.

Check out my post about a great alternative to synthetic materials.

Swap out that plastic water bottle for a sustainable option

Our tap water is nasty. It smells like dirt and sometimes we get a moldy or humid smell. YUCK!

We used to buy gallon jugs of water and refill them but as we grew with our sustainable lifestyle this method was no longer a fit for us. The solution? Gravity filters.

We store our filtered water in these glass jugs so that we always have fresh water to drink.

Recycle & Reduce waste

Have you ever seen a zero-waste advocate showing off 6 months’ worth of their waste in a mason jar? This is possible because of recycling, reusing, and reducing waste.

Recycling is a great way to live sustainably. It’s difficult to cut out plastics altogether but we can do our part to recycle them.

Get my guide on recycling in my resource library.

Not everything can be recycled. So also look for ways to reduce waste.

This is not always easy to do, but it can be done.

When we stop using hazardous chemicals and change what we bring into our homes, our health benefits in so many ways. I’ll cover that in another post soon!

What changes have you made for a sustainable lifestyle? – I’d love to hear in the comments!