Studio Bruin

Industrial Design Studio & Photographer

.5 Steps to Sustainable Living.

live more sustainable metal straws

I care about the environment and the world. This is quite a bold statement, because I feel like you should live your best when you say something like that. Hence I am doing my possible best. I am a student and therefore I do not always have the possibility to do everything I would like to do regarding sustainable living. For example because of costs and storage. And sometimes even because I am not strong enough to give something up. But that is okay. And I do believe that every bit helps. Next to that, I do feel like sustainable living shouldn’t get into the way of the quality of living too much. Finding a balance takes some time.

So, for today, I have planned to share 5 tips on how you can start your journey of sustainable living in a way that (probably) will not cost you too much time, money and effort. Let’s go!

.Re-use and recycle.

Everyone generates an enormous amount of waste. Since I am separating my waste (it was not possible at first) I realize that my plastic and paper waste amount is enormous. And also, I do produce some glass waste too. For this last one I am working on re-using the glass for new purposes, like using a Nutella jar for my plant cuttings!

You can use glass jars for literally everything. Storing left-overs, plants, you name it. Get creative with it!

sustainable living grocery bag

.Stop easy waste production.

Shopping for groceries (or shopping for anything at all) produces quite some waste. You get and buy bags everywhere to carry products. With a small solution this problem can be solved. Make sure that you always carry an (canvas) bag with you when you go shopping. This way you never have to ask for a bag. Maybe only when it does not fit. For vegetables and fruit you also have some smaller bags like on the picture above. I do weight the groceries separately and put them together in this very useful bag!

.Make-up remover cloths.

Cotton swaps and cotton pads were creating an enormous amount of waste (next to an amazing spending amount, actually). I decided to step over to re-usable cloths. Mine are made from polyester, which is not a perfect fabric due to plastic microfibers. Though, you can also buy a cotton fabric version. Ideal to take everywhere and you just have to wash them to be clean again!

Taking this step was one of the first ones from my sustainable living journey. And it’s effect inspires me to do more.

live more sustainable metal straws

.Plastic Substitutes.

I guess plastic waste is one of the most frustrating ones. We as a society discovered this material and decided to use it for everything. Luckily, over the last years we found some good substitutes. One example are straws. Using straws works for me to be able to drink more water during the day. Though, using plastic straws is extreme waste, therefore I never did it. When metal straws became a thing, I decided to use them to ameliorate my drinking habit. Sustainable living might come hand in hand with more dish washing, but I am completely fine with that.

.Less plastic bottles.

Again, I have a tip to reduce plastic waste. In this case, plastic bottles used for shampoo. Having a shampoo-bar is amazing! I even wrote an article about this particular one! They usually come in a paper box (which is easier to recycle) or they com in a tin can (in which you can store the next ones too). At LUSH they even sell them by just themselves, so you do not have any packaging waste! With my curly hair I was wondering if it might work well for me. More about this can be found in the article.

.Have you already started your sustainable living journey?.

For me, this is a beginning. And I have some more tips to share with you in the future! And I am very curious: what are your tips on sustainable living? Please share with me everything you have and do! I am very curious how everyone is doing what they can to produce less waste and ask less from the environment.

Have an amazing day!

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