The World Environment Day has just passed a few days back. We celebrated it in the best possible ways. Now, we are back to our routine work of destroying this planet. Why don’t we think every day about sustainable living? Why don’t we adopt a lifestyle which gives the scope of ‘Reduce, Reuse and Recycle’? We must practice it throughout the year and speak about our good work on the Environmental day. Let more of us get inspired to practice sustainable living.

What is sustainable living?

It is the reduction of using natural sources, less demand and less supply pattern. If we reduce our demand for things which uses and thereby depletes natural resources, then we are into the practice of sustainable living. How can we do that? Many of points I am discussing here are known to us but then a reminder on saving the Earth is necessary. Don’t all of you agree with me? Here I go with my suggestions:

1. Reduce energy consumption. It’s a routine talk about saving electricity and fossil fuels. What is new? Can we read more books and play outdoor and indoor games to avoid watching TV and avoid mobile phones, thereby reducing consumption of energy? Go back to the earlier days when children knew how to climb a tree or swim in rivers and ponds. What we did when we were technologically behind?
2. Use green energy as much as possible. Use of solar, wind and hydro energy should be encouraged.
3. Walk, bicycle, use car pools and public transportation. This will not only reduce the fossil fuels consumption but will promote reducing the junks of old car materials. Imagine the number of old cars and their parts after the maximum use are converted into the trash, the burden on the planet.
4. How many mobile phones, laptops, iPads, iPhones, computers, Television sets you require? Can you minimise the numbers? The unnecessary demand of electronic gadgets will promote manufacturing and the electronic waste will seek a landfill to get disposed. Still now, we don’t have proper recycling units of electronic gadgets. So think thrice before you buy any electronic gadget next time.
5. Nowadays, human habits are pampering luxury. You can find four cars displayed in front of a house but can’t find a tree grown up to add to the beautification of the house.
6. We have a habit of shopping unnecessarily. Sometimes shopping is done to lift up a depressed mood. But this is a wrong practice. Unnecessary things turn out to be junk materials and we remain clueless about disposing of the junks.
7. You can exchange clothes with your friends or your siblings to minimise the purchase of clothes. You can donate clothes of kids to orphanages or to the needy. Keep your old clothes and some new out of fashion clothes to distribute among natural disaster victims. More organisations are required to collect clothes and channelize the donation to the poor.
8. You can use your not so used clothes to prepare cloth bags, pillow and cushion covers or doormats. Can use old towels converted into kitchen napkins. Replace tissue papers with cloth napkins. Put your thoughts to innovate ideas for reusing clothes.This way we can minimise our demand of cloth materials and save the raw resource for future generation.
9. “Stop using plastics” is almost slogan now. Use glass, ceramics, paper or aluminium containers and packaging, to save the planet and its wildlife. Many marine animals are killed consuming plastics.
10. Stop drinking plastic bottled water. Use your home RO plants or filter water for drinking purpose. Carry that water in bottles wherever you go. Reuse the plastic water bottles as many times as possible. Plastic bottles are adding to the severe environmental hazards created by civilised society.
11. Adopt a lifestyle which demands minimum. Use small rooms, small buildings, small apartments. Avoid constructing a palatial house where only three or four people live.
12. Instead, construct a small house with lots of greenery around. Plant trees which bear fruits so that birds can live in your surroundings. Keep a bowl of water and seeds on which birds can live. Have lots of flowers in your garden to wake up to a beautiful morning every day. Stay close to nature and inhale fresh air every moment.
13. Segregate dry and wet wastes. Use your kitchen wastes to prepare compost and use it in gardening.
14. Work for the preservation of animals and plants. Teach your children about the importance of having a beautiful surrounding.
15. Take care of population growth. More population leads to more demand, more manufacturing and ultimately more trash burdens on the planet Earth.
16. Reduce your laundry work. Avoid use of plenty of soaps and detergents. Reduction of washings and use of soaps will reduce water pollution.
17. Similarly, if we reduce our consumption in every area, then definitely we will reduce the use of packaging and use of plastics. Remember every item you buy needs a packaging.
18. If you grow vegetables in your garden, then you can avoid buying grated vegetables from supermarkets. This will reduce packaging and trash burdens.
19. Unplug everything when not in use, save electricity. Use  LED lamps.
20. Use natural cleansers like a mixture of vinegar, baking soda and water instead of soaps/detergents to clean kitchen and bathroom tiles.

There are many more methods which we can practice. If we start practising reduce, reuse and recycle, we need to have more recycling units. Creating awareness about a sustainable living will encourage many to set up recycle and reuse units.

My purpose of writing this long post is to create awareness and also to remind already aware people. Environment protection is not one day or one week practice. It should be in our mind always. Let us born with nature, live with nature and rest in peace with nature.

Hope to return to you with another blog written on my way of sustainable living in the next World Environment Day.

Happy Living !!