Starting an Eco-friendly Lifestyle.

One would think that having an Eco-friendly lifestyle started just recently, but this actually goes back years ago. In fact, this has always been a part of our elementary level school curriculum where we learn about gardening, segregating waste and composting. Sadly, we just either forgot all about it or just didn’t care as much up until now that all these problems are arising – global warming, animals dying, pollution everywhere.. I guess the truth is, majority of us will only start acting once it affects us or its no longer convenient for us.

There is also that misconception that having an Eco-friendly lifestyle is expensive or a bit of a high maintenance, at least that’s what we thought at the beginning of the process but as we went on with it, we soon realized that we are not just helping to save the earth but we are saving some money as well. Not convinced? Well keep on reading to know how we did it.

1. RECYCLING. We started our Eco-friendly journey with a small gesture of recycling our plastic bottles, glass bottles, carton boxes, papers/books and anything that can be recycled basically. We put them on a separate bin and when “kuyang magbobote” comes by we sell it to him. Its not much but hey, its still money right?
2. ECO BAGS.The name itself says it, Eco-friendly bags are available in almost all counters in the supermarket. Though you don’t necessary have to buy one, if you have an old cloth bag like we do then you can use that instead. We usually bring 3 Eco bags when we go out for grocery to separate the fruits from the meat and other stuff. This way we tend to buy more items in the “palengke” than in the supermarket as most of the time its cheaper and you can bargain with the price. Plus most of the produce in the supermarket are already prepacked with plastic containers or cling wrap. I do admit its a bit of a walk and its not air conditioned and all, but in a way we are also squeezing in some exercise. Like hitting 2 birds with one stone.
   

   

3. RE-USE/RE-PURPOSE. This next Eco-friendly step that we do is actually very common to most Filipino households. We all have that microwavable, Tupperware and of course, that ice cream tub that always surprises you! We usually bring at least 3 containers when we go out for grocery so we can put our pork, chicken and beef there instead of putting it in their usual plastic packaging. At first the staff were giving us a question mark kind of face but after doing it repeatedly they already know the drill. Come to think of it, you throw the plastic instantly since you cant reuse it right?… We also have these containers from products we use for baking (if you didn’t know that yet, click the link for our page http://tgp-ph.com24muffintop) and we use them as pots for both our indoor and outdoor plants. We also use old mugs as pots for indoor plants, so we don’t really have to buy new pots unless its a big outdoor plant I guess.

   

4. DONATE / SELL OLD CLOTHES & other stuff. De-cluttering and living an Eco-friendly lifestyle actually comes hand in hand and by the way we did this even before the KonMari method became a hype, just saying hahaha. Anyways, we all have clothes we don’t wear anymore or just holding on to it thinking it will fit us someday or we can use it in some future event but in reality its almost never gonna happen.. We actually do this every year, its like a New years preparation kinda thing. So again before 2018 ended, we cleaned the house and got rid of all the things that we didn’t need. We set up a garage sale in front of our aunt’s store and we also posted it online in our Shopee account (Here’s the link if you’re curious.. https://shopee.ph/tgpph). Just this month there was a big fire in Cainta which was very near us, so were able  to donate almost 80% of the clothes we de-cluttered and some were already sold before that. We are proud to say that we haven’t bought new clothes for more than a year now and we are happy with what we have in general.

   

5. BRING YOUR OWN TUMBLER/WATER BOTTLE. This is the most important and life changing Eco-friendly step that we’ve made and we have to thank our friend- Jet for gifting us this Klean Kanteen bottle. So ever since we got this, we carry it with us 99.5% of the time. It keeps your water cold even after like 24 hours?, though it claims it can keep it cold for more hours than that but we usually finish our water within the day. When we need to refill, there’s usually a water fountain available in SM food courts or we ask water in restaurants where we ate. This has definitely saved us money since we don’t have to buy water bottle every time we were out and the good thing is it encourages us to drink more water. We also try as much not to buy drinks outside but whenever we do, we ask the staff if its okay to put it in out tumbler and they are very accommodating every time.
   

   

6. BEESWAX WRAPS. We had to find an Eco-friendly alternative for using cling wrap since we bake for a living and we finally made a decision of using beeswax wraps. Though there’s also silicon wraps available in the market, we just find ourselves more comfortable of using beeswax wraps for now. Why we use cling wrap in the first place? well, if you’re a baker then you know that some stuff needs to rest and what not. We just started using these recently so we’re still in the phase of testing it out. It does claim that you can use it for a year with some minor wear and tare but then you can give it a facelift anytime by applying beeswax shavings and ironing it with a parchment paper on top ( I saw Solenn Heusaff making her own Beeswax wraps in her blog and that’s how she did it.. yes we’re a fan of the Heussaff’s hehe). So if this works well, that will be another saving for us since we don’t have to spend on cling wrap anymore.

   

7. SHAMPOO BAR. This switch we also just did recently since we usually buy big bottles of shampoo to save before. We wanted to make this switch now since one of the biggest contributors of our waste are plastic bottled packaging, unfortunately not all of these bottles are accepted to be recycled. The shampoo bar that we chose is not only Eco-friendly but also budget friendly and organically made. It’s also locally made and the packaging is made of carton. For only P 180, Klara’s shampoo bars claims to last up to 60 baths, though we usually take a bath twice a day especially if we were out somewhere. Again, we’ve been using this for just over a week now and so far our scalp doesn’t show any signs of irritation or dandruff. We must mention that it really leaves your hair squeaky clean to the point of it feeling a bit dry. As of now, we still have a tube of cream silk left from our previous grocery so once that’s done we’ll probably get a conditioner bar to complete the Eco-friendly experience.

   

8. BEING AWARE. Clearly we still have a long way to go to fully live an Eco-friendly lifestyle. We still have to switch our toothbrush, our sponge, etc., but the important thing is that we are aware of the things we need to do as a small contribution to saving the earth. We are constantly conscious and seeking for more Eco-friendly alternatives available in our local market and online. Our goals are also more Eco-friendly oriented focusing on how we can add value to our community and to the society as a whole.

At the end of the day, we all need to do our part and go back to basics. Rethink our priorities in life and ask ourselves what’s really important and what matters to us. We decided that while we are busy on trying to make a living, we will not have a better place to live-in if our lands are covered in garbage, our air is no longer safe for breathing and our water is no longer safe for drinking. Let us know if you have more Eco-friendly ways that we can add to our list. 🙂