Green Living For The Lazy People

Going green doesn’t have to be a sacrifice or a life changing experience. This is one area where a little effort goes a long way. There are many strategies you can use to reduce your eco footprint without dedicating your life to the cause or giving up the things you love.

Changing Out Appliances

Green living is the latest trend, but most of the tips seem so, well, time-consuming. Are there ways to reduce your impact on the earth without spending all of your time and energy doing it?

Replace appliances with greener alternatives. Are you feeling guilty about not hanging out the laundry? Buy a front loading washer and dryer. The washer will use just a quarter of the water your old top loader used, and leave your clothing dryer. That means less time in the dryer. The water and energy savings will pay for the new appliances, and you can feel good about using your dryer.

If you aren’t up for new appliances, simply wash your clothes on cold. Most of the energy used to wash cloth goes to heating the water, and the hot water doesn’t add much cleaning power.

Organic is Good

Eat meat and dairy—but very little. A new study by Cornell shows that, because farming for vegan products requires high quality land while animal and dairy farming can be done almost anywhere, eating a small amount of meat and dairy, 2 or less ounces per day, is the most environmentally correct option.

Buy organic. It doesn’t take any more time to drop a box of organic cereal into your shopping cart, but it can make a huge difference. While conventional farming dumps millions of tons of pesticides, herbicides, and chemical fertilizers into our fragile environment every year, organic farming is sustainable and good for the planet.

Think Vintage

Buy used. Whether you’re talking about clothing, decor, or furniture, ‘vintage’ is the new black, and its easy to see why. With timeless styles and one-of-a-kind cuts, you’ll never again have to worry about someone else wearing the same outfit. As a bonus, it keeps used clothing out of the landfill and cuts down on the amount of pesticides produced in cotton farming.

As you can see, it is easy being green, and it’s a solid, sustainable choice you can feel good about. If everyone practices lazy ecology, we can avoid extreme climate change without taking extreme measures.