30 Tips for Reducing your Footprint

There are many more ways to reduce your footprint and be more sustainable, but here's a few starters...

1. Reduce your waste - save leftover food scraps like carrot tops, onion ends, potato skins - to make a more flavourful stock or broth. If you're not making one straight away or you don't have enough for a broth, store in the freezer until you have enough.
2. Compost scraps - get or make a worm farm, compost heap or worm tubes in the garden or bokashi bin in the house. 
3. Support Local Business.  We love to shop at our fabulous local grocer Green Onions 
4. Minimise packaging - select 'loose' fruit and vegetables. Avoid those single use polystyrene trays and plastic wrap. Do those 2 apples you're buying really need a plastic bag? 
5. Take your own grocery bags to the shops
6. Make and take your own vegetable/fruit bags out of scrap materials - I've used leftover mesh curtains and tutu material before, sewn up with some light ribbon to make a simple draw string bag. Much better than those single use plastic bags!
7. Consider your purchases - do you really 'need' that new item? Can you repurpose an old item or make do without? 
8. Visit second hand/op-shops for gadgets/kitchen items/books/toys/clothes/furniture etc etc etc
9. Plant a vegie garden. Buy some seeds to plant, share a seed packet or seedling punnet with a friend. Growing your own food reduces your weekly bill as well as 
10. Plant a tree and increase greenery around your house. Ask a neighbour for some cuttings from their established plants. More greenery will help to cool your immediate environment and help keep moisture and life in the soil and wildlife in your area.
11. Turn the lights off if not in the room! 
12. When you're in the room - do you really need the light on or is it just habit? Consider whether or not opening your curtains will provide adequate lighting for the task.
13. Get the kids outside in the fresh air and using their imaginations! TV and electronics use electricity and may limit their imaginations 
14. Buy in bulk to reduce trips to the shops.
15. Make your own preserves and condiments from scratch - from bulk food such as tomatos (sugo/tomato passata), mayonnaise, chutneys, jams and fermented vegies.  
16. Use of fans in Summer. Try a simple fan in the room instead of having the A/C on in the whole house 
17. Use of external blinds/awnings, internal curtains/blinds to keep out the Summer heat or keep in the Winter warmth
18. Consider use of window films or window coverings such as Renshade to reduce radiant heat in Summer
19. Plant some deciduous shade trees or climbers to shade out North/West facing windows in Summer to keep your house cooler
20. Buy some cutlery from a second hand shop to keep in the car or in your handbag/backpack to use when out and about instead of using plastic cutlery/containers.
21. Take a metal water bottle with you on the go instead of purchasing a bottle out and about
22. Keep a coffee 'keep cup' in the car or in your handbag/backpack in the case you'd like to purchase or make your own coffee/tea at work or out and about. Saves a takeaway container each time.
23. Reuse envelopes as scrap paper.
24. Install a water tank to capture rain water off your roof.  If you're building a new house, you can plumb these into your toilets and washing machine. 
25. Use your greywater from your washing machine to water plants. 
26. Keep a bucket in the shower or bath as the water is heating up - this can be used to flush the toilets or water your newly planted vegie garden! 
27. Take a look at the chemicals in your shampoo/conditioner/washing detergent - consider switching to something a little kinder on your skin and environment. You may even consider making your own. (Recipes to follow!)
28. Reconsider using conditioner in your clothes washer. This is full of VOC's - consider replacing with a few drops of essential oils for scent and some vinegar for softness in the final rinse instead. 
29. Toilet rolls have many uses (your imagination is the limit!) including making your own Christmas bon bons, making cars or telescopes or binoculars for the kids, folding over one end and fill with soil to make a little planter for seeds which can be planted directly and compost into the soil. 
30. Replace that single use plastic food wrap! Purchase or make your own beeswax cotton covers which are reusable and cover food just as well. 

What other methods do you use to reduce your footprint?