These days, we are all much more conscious of how our action affect our planet, and if we aren’t, we should be. While we don’t have to completely change up the way we live our lives, there are simple things we can do every day to reduce the waste in our homes that can have a lasting effect on the life of our planet.

Here are 5 ways you can reduce waste in your home:

1.    Say goodbye to plastic water bottles

Plastic water bottles are the biggest issue when it comes to creating waste that ends up in our landfills. While plastic is recyclable and you can bring them back to a beverage center, some people don’t take the time to do that and they end up creating much more plastic waste than necessary. A way to avoid plastic water bottle waste is buying a reusable water bottle or to-go cup. Our favorite reusable water bottle is a Hydroflask – they come in a variety of different sizes and they keep your drinks cold forever.

2.    Compost

If you find yourself throwing away a lot of uneaten food, fruit skins, eggs shells, any type of food scrapes, don’t throw it out, compost it! Composting is a great thing to use if you’re trying to grow a garden – it’s one of the best fertilizers you can use. Why create all that food waste if you can use it for another purpose?

3.    Donate things, don’t throw them out

Shopping secondhand and donating things you plan to get rid of is a great and simple way to decrease waste. Whether it be clothing, old dishes, old kitchenware, shoes, bags, anything you can imagine – you can donate it to your local shelter or Goodwill or Salvation Army. This way, your items won’t end up sitting in the landfills for years and there is always someone out there who will use something you are getting rid of.

4.    Reusable grocery bags

While this is becoming a required thing in some states like New York, switching to reusable bags when shopping for anything, especially groceries is a great way to decrease our carbon footprint on this planet. Most people hoarded plastic grocery bags and those bags often ended up in the streets, in our wildlife, or in our oceans and they cause more issues than just climate change – they can kill thousands of animals each year.

5.    Shop at local farmers markets

We know it sounds crazy but shopping at local farmers markets is a win-win situation. You’ll be supporting a local business and you’ll be reducing waste. Farmers don’t get things shipped to them since they grow everything themselves, meaning that they don’t use package waste and they don’t use large 18-wheel trucks to get things shipped to them. Shopping local is a great way to reduce waste.

Let’s save our planet together

By working together and doing everything we can to reduce waste in our homes and our carbon footprint on the planet, we are doing so much more than just making our world cleaner – we are helping to allow our planet to live longer.