How to Reduce Your Carbon Footprint in 5 Simple Steps

With how much our everyday products are packaged and wrapped in plastic and cardboard and with how easy it has become to discard used goods in the trash or recycling bin, it is no surprise that one person’s average carbon footprint is 21.5 percent every year. We are a society built on materialism and consumption and speed, and this number reflects that. But there are ways that we can reduce our individual carbon footprints through these 8 simple steps:

1. Avoiding Fast Fashion

Don’t buy fast fashion, which includes clothes made to be worn only a few times before they are thrown away or lose their quality. Stores that popularly make fast fashion are H&M, Urban Outfitters, ASOS, Forever 21, and Zara just to name a few. The average American household accumulates over seventy pounds of textile waste a year, and the problem with this much waste is that the clothing ending up in landfills are often made from non-biodegradable synthetic materials, which release toxic chemicals into the air. To avoid fast fashion, go to your local thrift store or buy clothes from Facebook Marketplace because vintage looks are a trend right now, and what better way to emulate the look than to wear actual clothes made from decades past.

2. Eat Green

Eating low on the food chain can help you reduce your carbon footprint by just adding more fruits and vegetable to your daily meals. Meat and dairy are responsible for over 15% of the manmade global greenhouse gas emissions because of what their feed and how much methane farms produce because of their animals belching. In fact, if you were to go without meat and dairy products for a whole day, your carbon footprint can decrease by 8 pounds. You don’t have to become a vegetarian or vegan to limit your carbon footprint, just consider bringing more vibrant colors to your plate because we all need to eat our vegetables!

3. Use Reusable Bags

At every Walmart, Target, Kroger, and other various supermarkets, plastic bags are given to each customer who checks out and these bags later become thrown away or kept to pick up pet poop. If you have just one reusable bag that you use while shopping, your carbon footprint can drastically decrease. Having reusable bags can protect our wildlife and help to clean up our public spaces. Not using plastic bags keeps more oil in the ground and because it reduces our carbon footprints, it can limit the ongoing phenomenon of global warming.

4. Buy Laptops

Buying and using laptops rather than using desktops can greatly reduce the energy output and carbon footprint that we develop every day. Laptops require less energy to function even when they are charging compared to desktop computers, which need to be plugged in at all times to work. Furthermore, less work and energy goes into the creation of laptops because they are much smaller and slimmer than desktop computers.

5. Change Your Transportation

It is no surprise that if you were to limit how much you drove to school or work in your car, then your carbon footprint would dramatically decrease because walking and biking give off absolutely no fumes. Furthermore, biking and walking can greatly improve your health and can offset usual traffic congestion. Of course, if you work or go to school far from where you live, then it can be impossible to bike or walk, but check if your town has any public transportation like buses and trains, or carpool with others making the same journey.