Moving towards a more sustainable life
Perth College UHI Marketing Team Leader, Lisa Findlay, shares her thoughts on how she is moving towards a more sustainable life:
There is a lot in the media at present about living in a sustainable manner. For me, it is thinking about the future world my children will inherit. I remember being at primary school and learning about the effects of aerosol cans on the ozone layer, acid rain and the videos to promote Live Aid (showing my age here) and feeling sad that not everyone had access to clean drinking water.
While this was not strictly an ‘environmental’ drive, it did make me realise at quite a young age how people’s living environment affects their quality of life. My mum says I always turned off the tap when I was cleaning my teeth to save water, and years later my husband noticed this habit that has always stuck with me!
The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report released a year ago warned we have 12 years to limit climate change catastrophe. The high profile protests by Extinction Rebellion and Sir David Attenborough’s widely-reported concerns have all made me rethink my ‘environmental’ credentials.
While I definitely could be better (and strive to continue to make more changes that will make a difference), there are a few changes that we could all consider to help our children inherit a world that can hopefully successfully sustain the generations that follow them.
Some eco-friendly approaches include:
Try not to stay in the shower too long. (There’s me saving water again!)
Turn off electrical appliances and lights not in use.
Bring lunch from home to save on single use plastics. Use reusable containers. This also makes financial sense, uses leftover food and helps you make healthier choices.
Try switching your search engine to Ecosia, whose founders use the profit from internet searches to plant trees. They are currently the largest funder of sustainable tree-planting in the world.
Cook your dinner using seasonal goods. Be a savvy shopper, plan each meal in advance and only buy as much as you need to reduce food wastage. Freeze leftovers or make into soup.
Recycle as much as you can to reduce landfill. I have only recently stated composting my food waste (we don’t throw much away, but items such as teabags, banana skins, top and tails of carrots, onions skins etc…) and find my landfill bins are much reduced.
By making conscious changes to save wasting precious resources and reducing our waste, hopefully we can move closer towards environmental sustainability for future generations.
