Monday Mix-up - My top eco-friendly tips - Week 4

We're into week 4 of exploring ways to make it easier for you to do your bit for the environment. If you start at week 1 and work your way through week 2 and 3, you will see that it's actually really easy to do your bit to help clean up, and take pressure off our environment. I hope I don't need to explain why it's so important to do your bit! But just in case you're wondering why Johannesburg has been hit with 2 solid weeks of rain, there's this thing called climate change...

Today's tips are small, very simple tips and so I am going to give you 5 to choose from instead of just 3. If you implement one or two of these a month, not only will it make a big difference to so many lives, but you can also pat yourself on the back, and feel proud of yourself, for doing something REALLY good.

Tip number 10: Have a nappy conscience

By the time a child is toilet-trained, a parent will change around 7000 nappies! That adds up to about 3.5 million tons of waste in landfills each year. I can hear everyone already. Ugh, nappies are enough of a mission without having to worry about washing them and are cloth nappies really going to be absorbent enough and keep everything contained? These days, cloth nappies are very different to the ones our parents and grandparents used. They not only LOOK gorgeous, but they are designed for comfort and practicality. Is convenience really a good enough reason to put THAT much rubbish into our landfills and poison our environment permanently? Not for me. I'm happy to spend more time washing nappies if it means that there is one less person in the world adding to the nappy problem. How about you?

Tip number 11: Hang your clothes out to dry

Aside from the last 2 weeks, we have been blessed with beautiful, sunny days for two solid months and yet there are many people who still insist on tumble drying their clothes instead of hanging them on a washline. Air-drying clothes isn't a new concept. It's been happening for thousands of years because it works. An added bonus is that all of your clothes will maintain their colour and their fit. Your favourite pair of jeans will last MUCH longer and your electricity bill will be lower than it's ever been. All it takes is a little more effort but, did you know that hanging washing actually burns calories;)

Tip number 12: Wash clothes in cold or warm water

If every household in South Africa switched from hot washing machine cycles to just warm or cold, we could save energy comparable to at least 50 000 barrels of oil a day. With Eskom's unfortunate incompetence leading to load shedding nationwide recently, it is even more important to lower the pressure being placed on our power grid until they can get their act together. This is such an easy thing to do. If you wash your clothes on a hot wash you are only shortening their lifespan anyway by causing colours to fade and possible shrinkage to happen. A warm wash will get the job done just as well and, in most cases, a cold wash too.

Tip number 13: Use less paper serviettes

During an average year, one person uses about 2 200 paper serviettes. That works out to about 6 a day! You know what happens. You collect your food at a takeaway and they throw a handful of serviettes in the bag as a rule. You end up using one or two of them and the rest end up in the bin. If everyone used one less serviette a day, more than 4 million kgs of serviettes could be saved from landfills annually. Instead of simply taking all the serviettes along with your takeaway, tell them you will only need 2 or 3 depending on your needs and give the rest back. If more people start doing this, employees will start to ask instead of simply assuming and you will be doing your bit to change the world;)

Tip number 14: Use both sides of paper

Businesses throw away around 21 million tons of paper every year in America alone. That doesn't include households. We print things without thought and throw them away just as fast. Nine times out of ten, the first two pages you print will be wrong and need to be reprinted which only wastes more. Why not keep those "mistake" pages on hand and, next time you need to print something that is only going to have a short shelf-life, use it and print on the back of it. If you need to print an assignment or document for work, print it on both sides of the paper. It uses far less paper and an added bonus is that it looks far more professional.

That's it! My 5 tips for this week. Pop back next week for more tips on ways for you and your family to do your bit for the environment!