Opt for a ceramic mug when drinking coffee
Coffee shops are a competitive business, and they’re typically willing to meet your requests to ensure that you’re happy with your order. When placing your order for whatever keeps you caffeinated, be sure to specify “for here” to make sure it’s served in a reusable cup. And to be extra sure, ask “for here in a ceramic cup,” which would ensure that no disposable products are used for your order at all. Bring your own reusable thermos to fill up, and you can reduce your single-use consumption to zero.
NO LINERS
Pan liners are a cooking innovation designed to save time and effort by negating the necessity to scrub pots, pans and baking trays. You just line them in single-use plastic sheets that you simply throw away when you’re done. The problem? Plastic pan liners aren’t recyclable, which makes them a 100% waste product. Opt out of pan liners and do what generations of cooks did before you: Cook, bake and roast in your cookware, then scrub it clean when you’re done.
SWEET BEAKS
Did you know birds have a taste for artificial sweeteners? The pink and blue packets are appealing to our feathered friends, once they get a taste for sweeteners; so much so that many birds will swipe them from outdoor tables at restaurants. Unfortunately, birds are the last animals that need to lose weight, so the zero nutritional content they get from consuming artificial sweeteners can harm them; some birds even starve to death eating them. Keep the packets out of the open when you dine outside, and ask restaurants to stash them to help birds maintain their natural diet.
PACK LESS
It’s no surprise that flying on a plane isn’t the most eco-friendly way to travel, but sometimes it’s the only way to get where you need to go. One way to help reduce your carbon footprint when you fly is to simply pack less. The more weight from overpacked suitcases on the plane, the more fuel it consumes to fly. If every passenger on a domestic flight packed 5 pounds less stuff, that would save more than 60 million gallons of fuel every year. Take out one pair of shoes, a few books and a pair of jeans, and voila! Five pounds gone.
USES FOR WAX PAPER
Wax paper can do more than just wrap food. Use it to give spotty bathroom fixtures a shine; the residual wax will buff the metal and create a barrier to prevent new spots from forming. You can also use it to unstick a zipper: Just rub waxed paper right over the zipper to lubricate it. And save used waxed paper to use as a fire starter. The paper-and-wax combo is perfect for creating a slow burn so your fireplace or grill will ignite in no time flat.
FROZEN YOGURT
When packing a lunch to take to the office or for your kid to take to school, try this hack to keep your food chilled: Throw in a frozen container of yogurt. It will function as an ice pack to keep your other food cool while also keeping your yogurt cold until it’s lunchtime. Yogurt is the perfect food item to freeze; freezing a juice container or thermos of water may work, but both are slow to thaw out. Dairy items like yogurt freeze hard and thaw quickly. By lunchtime, it’ll be the perfect creamy consistency you love.
LINT TRAP
Every time you deposit a load of freshly washed clothing in the dryer, make it a habit to empty the lint trap. This one simple act actually improves the efficiency of your dryer by .5%. While this may not seem like a lot, it does help you save both a little money and time. A clean lint trap means a more efficient dryer, which takes less time to get your clothes dry. It also makes your appliance safer, as full lint traps can be a fire hazard. Remember: Lint can be tossed right into the compost bin if the laundry consists of all-natural fibers like cotton, linen, wool and hemp.