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Change Your Habits, Change Your Life, Change the World: Green Living

Change Your Habits, Change Your Life, Change the World: Green Living

One of the many reasons people become discouraged when attempting to make a change in their lives is because they don’t see results. The same problem applies to green living. Without visible evidence, many people simply feel no incentive to reduce, reuse, recycle, and change the way they look at their impact on the world.

This year, if you have yet to make a New Year’s Resolution, we encourage you to try changing how you view your impact. Small changes can do a lot more than you might think. If you still need evidence, don’t worry, the way you feel once you start to change your habits will be all the proof you need.

Change Your Habits

Becoming conscious of the way you buy, use, and dispose of things in your life doesn’t have to be a chore. In fact, making a few small habit changes can make green living effortless. So, let’s talk about some of your bad habits! (Don’t worry, we don’t care about your secret stash of chocolate.)

Single-Use Plastics

Single-use plastics should be the first thing you cut out of your life if you are determined to make some eco-friendly habit changes. The recent uptick in production and usage of single-use plastic items like produce bags, plastic water bottles, straws, etc. has put a serious strain on the environment. In the U.S. alone more than 100 billion plastic bags are used annually, each used for an average of just 12 minutes before being thrown away. Where do these items end up? Not being recycled! Most often, single-use plastics are tossed in the trash or littered, eventually finding their way to a landfill, or, to the ocean.

Though these products are readily available everywhere, a solution is much easier than you might think. Investing in a few simple household items can help you combat plastic pollution and reduce your personal impact on the environment. Try picking up some of our eco-friendly alternatives to single-use plastic items from Wowe Lifestyle.

Avoid plastic straws by picking up a set of our stainless steel straws made from FDA approved stainless steel that can last for years! Stop grabbing those flimsy plastic produce bags at the grocery store and use one of our organic cotton produce bags instead. Stay hydrated and cut plastic water bottles out of your life with one of our stainless steel water bottles, perfect for taking your favorite beverage with you on the go.

Short-Life Plastics

Like single-use plastics, short-life plastics are frequent occupants of landfills and unwelcome floaters in oceans. Though used for slightly longer than single-use plastic products, these items are quickly disposed of. Toothbrushes are one such example. Usable for only three months, these mixed plastic items cannot be recycled or reused, dooming them to life in a landfill or polluting some ecosystem. Taking thousands of years to begin to break down, short-life plastic items will be polluting our planet long after they become useless.

Rather than spending your hard-earned cash on more environmentally destructive plastic products, choose items that do the job just as well without harming the planet. Choose a natural bamboo toothbrush next time you need a replacement; this toothbrush is biodegradable, made from sustainably sourced natural products, and is an excellent toothbrush to boot!

Love a smooth shave? Chances are you have probably purchased a few dozen plastic razors in your lifetime. Like plastic toothbrushes, plastic razors can often only be used for a short period of time before needing to be replaced. Instead of buying another over-priced short-life plastic razor, pick up a bamboo double edge safety razor from Wowe. Made to last a lifetime, this razor also features replaceable blades that are 100% recyclable.

Overspending and Under Using

Excessive consumption of goods is a problem all over the world in one way or another, and we are willing to bet we can help you find a few places you might be guilty of this, too. Overspending on items you don’t need, on too many of an item, on too much food, etc. is a problem that might take a little longer to fix, but we think we can help.

Consider the impact your overspending has on not only yourself but the world. Firstly, buying more than you need, whether it be groceries/ingredients, clothes, etc. is a waste of your hard-earned money. Second, over buying creates or maintains a higher demand for goods than what can actually be consumed. Basically, by buying too much, we are telling companies we want more than we actually need, and they use the resources and make the products whether or not we actually need them.

Worst of all, the items we overspend on go to waste. Food is waste, unused clothes are just thrown away, resources are overextended, and over-filled landfills only continue to take on new waste. Moving forward, we encourage you to try to buy only what you will actually use. No, we aren’t suggesting you never buy a new pair of shoes or an extra wedge of cheese, we only suggest that you make sure you use the things you buy and don’t buy what you don’t need!

Change Your Life

As you begin to make simple habit changes focused around green living and your impact on the world, your life will change as well. Though not all of these factors will be immediately apparent, we promise that the long-term effects will be rewarding!

Improve Your Health

Many if not most single-use and short-life plastic items are made from plastics containing BPA and other harmful chemicals. Though small amounts of BPA may not have an impact on your health, extended use of plastic items containing BPA may have certain health risks. A hormone disruptor, BPA has been linked to certain developmental and hormone conditions including certain cancers, reproductive development disorders, infertility, and more.

By avoiding single-use and short-life plastic items, you help yourself avoid the harmful chemicals they contain. The reusable and eco-friendly products we offer at Wowe are completely safe to use over extended periods of time, never beginning to degrade or release harmful toxins over time.

Save Money

Believe it or not, the cost of those pesky single-use and short-life plastic items really can add up. Plastic water bottles cost between $1-$6 in many convenience stores, a hefty price tag for something that cannot be used more than once. Suppose you need two bottles of water every day at work. Averaging around $3 per bottle, plenty of people spend upwards of $30 on water every week.

A reusable water bottle from Wowe costs $28.95 and can last a lifetime. Let’s say you use your water bottle for just 5 years before deciding to replace it with a new one. Assuming you bring it with you and refill it, you’ll be spending only $0.11 per week on water and saving more than $1000 per year!

Feel Empowered

As you make changes to your habits and develop new and greener methods of living your everyday life, we know you will start to feel empowered. Understanding your impact on the world is a powerful thing, and we know that you will love the feeling of knowing you are making a difference.

Beyond your new understanding of your environmental impact, living a greener lifestyle will also help you feel more empowered and in control of your money. You’ll know that the money you earn is going to the right place, and you’ll feel good knowing the things you buy are being used to their fullest.

Change the World

It’s alright to feel discouraged now and then, after all, there is no way for you alone to change the world. Though feeling worried about how much you can do is natural, don’t dwell on it for long, we’re here to reassure you that you really are making a difference.

Share Your Knowledge

Perhaps most impactful will be your ability to share your knowledge with the people around you. Your friends and family will notice the ways you have made changes, and some may naturally be interested on their own. Others might want to talk to you about your new habits, learning something along the way. You can set an example for others around you by using your new knowledge of green living to promote living a less wasteful life.

Though you may not notice it at first, you have an impact on the people around you. By spreading your knowledge, more people will begin to reduce their own consumption, reduce their waste, and make choices that are better for themselves and the world around them.

Start your green living journey with Wowe Lifestyle. Be sure to check out our blog, Better Living, to learn more about changing your life for the betterment of the planet.