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It goes without saying that when you use less, you have the potential to have more in the long run. Think about turning off the faucet when brushing your teeth. Or, making a list to only buy what you need at the grocery store to avoid overbuying and waste. But, what are other ways that we can use less and what are the benefits?
“We live on a planet with limited resources. But, we don’t think about the next or three or five generations beyond us.” It’s a quote from Benjamin Kander, founder of the reusable water bottle brand Welly. In 2021, he spoke to The Wellness Feed about how we use earth’s resources and his mission to help consumers rely less on single-use plastic and conserve water. He’s right, how we use resources today can impact what resources will be available for the generations after us. And, according to some data, it may not even be in several generations that we’ll experience lack of resources. It could happen within the next two or three decades.
Resource extraction has more than tripled since 1970, including a fivefold increase in the use of non-metallic minerals and a 45% increase in fossil fuel use.
UN Environment’s Global Resources Outlook 2019
According to the United Nations, we can’t wait any longer to change our production and consumption habits to reach goals like reducing plastic pollution or conserving water. It’s important to learn how to act now to offset the consequences of pollution and the unsustainable use of resources- lack of biodiversity, an almost 50% increase of greenhouse gas emission and water scarcity that we could face as early as 2050.
Some of these actions will require drastic changes from governments and industries while others are simple everyday solutions that require us consumers to use less. Below are a few ways that you can use fewer of earth’s resources and help make the planet a more habitual place for the next generation… or five.
Buy Quality Over Quantity
A quality sweater is an item that you’ll wear over and over, season after season. It won’t pill after a few wears and snagging is unlikely. When well-cared for, it’ll keep it’s shape spectacularly to be a piece that you’re likely to wear for years. That’s the beauty of a quality piece of clothing. Unlike fast and cheap fashion, clothes that are well-made will last for a few years. That way, you’ll buy fewer items that you’ll throw away after just a few wears. It could be a perfect wrap dress that you pull out every summer. Or, a coat that after after 10 years still looks good enough to be a heritage.
Environmental Impact: Using what we already have is one of the easiest ways to use less and to minimize the growth of our landfills. In 2018 we added 17 million tons of textile waste to landfills, many of them being made from polyester which can take 200+ years to decompose.
Invest In Trans-Seasonal Clothes
Another way to use less… or buy less is to buy pieces of clothing that you can wear throughout the year. Instead of having completely separate wardrobes for each and every season, invest in clothing items that can go from season to season. The easiest transitional items that come to mind are t-shirts and jeans. But, with a pair of warm tights, cotton dresses that you wear during the summer can be worn throughout fall too.
Environmental Impact: Our clothes cost resources. Every year the fashion industry uses:
- 93 billion cubic meters of water. That’s enough for 5 million people.
- 20% of all wastewater comes from the fashion industry.
- 10% of all global CO2 emissions comes form the fashion industry.
- 1.7 billion tons of fossil fuels are emitted yearly
Rent Or Swap Instead Of Shop
Our modern day throw-away culture has normalized the idea of using an item only once and throwing it out. Fast fashion brands have been called out for burning unworn clothes at the end of the season. And, raise your hand if you’ve done a spring cleaning that resulted in piles of unworn and unused items being tossed into the trash bin. Alice Horwood, founder of the sustainable rental platform Reason to Rent was once in the throw-away cycle before she realized that, “Over time, I thought what a waste, financially and environmentally.” She’s not alone in her thinking. Rental and resell sites have boomed lately offering conscious consumers various ways to swap and sell everything from homegoods to that designer handbag that you never wore.
Environmental Impact: We recycled less than 20% of all textiles in the U.S. That’s about 17 million tons thrown out yearly with each piece of clothing having an average lifespan of 5 years. With other statistics showing that today we buy 60% more clothing than we did 15 years ago, that number is only expected to increase.
The recycling of 2.62 million tons of clothing per year equates to taking 1.3 million cars from U.S. streets.
~ Environmental Protection Agency
Use Less Water
Aside from buying fewer, high quality items there are other ways that you can reduce your environmental impact. In your every day life you can practice conserving water with these simple tips you can do in your home.
- Take shorter showers & install water-saving shower heads.
- Turn off the water while you’re shaving, lathering your hair or brushing your teeth.
- Take baths with the water only half-way full.
- Fill washer machines and dishwashers all the way before turning them on.
- Fill up the sink while cleaning fruits and veggies.
Environmental Impact: Did you know that by buying less clothing you’ve found one way to use less water? That’s because our clothing sucks up a lot of water. One pair of jeans is estimated to use 1,800 gallons of water to make. That’s a lot of water for a piece of clothing that may or may not even make our bums look good, because water scarcity is a real problem. Globally 2.7 billion people experience water scarcity. Within 5 years it’s estimated that 2/3 of the world won’t have access to clean and safe drinking water.
Use Fewer Plastic Bags
Did you know that pharmacies like CVS offer paper bags? It’s not advertised, but when you go to the check-out counter you can request paper instead of plastic. On April 2021 eight states including Pennsylvania, California, Connecticut, and New York will pass a plastic bag legislation that will ban single-use plastic bags in retail stores. So, now might be the time to embrace carrying reusable bags when you’re out shopping for groceries or a gift for Valentine’s Day.
If you don’t see a ban happening in your state you can always sign your name to a petition banning plastic bags from major retailers like Target. This one from Customers Who Care already has 500,000!
Environmental Impact: It takes 12 million barrels of oil to keep up with America’s need for 100 billion plastic bags every year.Unfortunately, those resources go to waste since only 1% is recycled with the remainder ending up in our landfills. Some of that waste even ends up in our oceans where more than 100,00 thousand marine animals die each year due to plastic bags.
