Powerful Daily Green Habits I Adopted for an Eco-Friendly Lifestyle – Series 1

Welcome to my latest blog post! Here, I’ll share my personal experiences and a mix of tried-and-tested Daily Green Habits —both the successes and failures 😊.

After having two kids, I had a wake-up call when I glanced at my waste basket just before tossing it into the bin. The amount of plastic waste I was generating was staggering, and it hit me hard. That moment was a sudden shock for me and I decided that I had to take steps to cut down on my plastic use.

We all want the best for our children, and a healthy environment is a crucial part of that future. Sustainable living isn’t just a passing trend—it’s more important than ever. But where do you begin? With so much information available, integrating eco-friendly habits into your daily life can feel overwhelming.

In this post, I’ll outline the small changes I’ve made that have had a big impact on my family’s lives and the environment. From mindful consumption to waste reduction, these daily green habits are designed to be both simple and effective, showing that even small actions can lead to significant changes.

Whether you’re new to sustainability or looking to refine your eco-friendly routine, these tips will help you make a positive impact without compromising convenience or comfort. I’ll keep it straightforward and practical, so you can easily incorporate these actions into your life.

Identifying Plastic Waste: Daily Green Habits for Recognizing and Reducing Your Plastic Waste

The day I noticed a huge amount of plastic waste in my trash bin and I decided to reduce my waste, I was totally confused. I had no idea how am I going to do this. It was a few years ago and the internet was not so much cluttered with useless information. I was still skeptical about getting the information from the internet and trying out things. I was desperate for a solution and I also knew that if I didn’t do this right, I would lose interest and may not continue.

If you are new to sustainable journey, do check out my other posts below.

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Daily Green Habits – Sustainable lifestyle practices

This desperation did help me to come up with really creative ideas. After a few trials and errors, I derived a basic 2-step process to help me to identify the amount of plastic waste I was generating and to form my daily green habits.

Daily Green Habits: Sorting my weekly pile of waste

Conduct a Waste Audit:

I started by examining my trash for a whole month. I took notes of the plastic items which I was throwing into rubbish bin this not only included packaging items, bottles, bags, or anything made of plastic. This gave me a clear picture of my plastic consumption. I went to the lengths to count the usage of sanitary pads and/or tampons as it was quite a bit of trash. But this was an excellent exercise. I made different bins to segregate different types of waste, this was really helpful to document every waste item.

Keep a Plastic Diary:

I started separating the waste into different baskets for an entire week / month and started counting each item. In those days I was not very tech savvy so I used my old diary and pen (Yes, I agree that it was time-consuming) but nowadays you can do this activity in any online journal or any app on your mobile.

Maintaining a journal helped me to identify my pain points and made me more aware of my habits and it also helped me to see patterns in my plastic usage. I built a table that looked something like this.

Daily Green Habits: Summary of weekly plastic waste

The above table is what I have created in XLS to write this post only, I used to create these kinds of tables in my diary 😊. I know most of today’s generation will find it unimaginable but I did it. It’s not that technology was not available but I was just most comfortable using my paper and pen, something which I have almost stopped using nowadays.

I didn’t stop at this, I started counting the sanitary pads/tampons I was using monthly for my periods. I have always had an issue of heavy bleeding so it was common for me to use around 6-8 sanitary pads or tampons for the first 4 days.

So, my monthly wastage was like 35-40 pads to be on the lower side and all this was going to a landfill. I was horrified looking at this.

These numbers gave me a heart attack. I was so stunned looking at the waste and my numbers. The first question that came to my mind was how could I be so blind for so long and didn’t notice this earlier and what can I do to reduce this mess.

It was a real eye-opener.

I have made a few some small changes in my life style but I can see the significant impact on my waste. I will be sharing all my practical daily green habits in multiple posts. This is the first post where I am sharing the a single habits which I changed. Practically this habit is monthly need but has a significant impact and has really helped me to form my daily green habits.

Daily Green Habits – 1st Change I made for an Eco-Friendly Lifestyle

The smallest change that was completely in my hands was to reduce my sanitary product waste. All I had to do was to do little search online and discussing openly with some of my close friends and I got to know that there are a few easy solutions already available in the market. I have just never thought about it and these solutions are not new, they have been available in the market for quite some time.

I spoke to some of my close friends and realized that most of us are in the same boat. Normal sanitary pads or tampons not only generate a lot of waste but they are quite difficult to dispose of too. At least in my area, there was so separate collection of menstrual waste, so we had to throw them along with other waste, which felt very unhygienic too.

Daily Green Habits: 1st Change towards a Greener Environment

Together we visited a gynaecologist and she suggested to use a Menstrual Cup….. OMG, what a blessing. It has been almost 8+ years since I have been using the same cup and not generating even a single pad or tampon in the waste. Moreover, there is nothing to dispose of. This is a perfect solution for my daily green habits.

The only issue with using a Menstrual cup is that at times I forget that I am on my period and end up doing all kinds of adventurous sports too which I find very nice and comforting. I never have to run from a meeting due to leaking or any other issue.

You might be thinking, is it some magical pill that can resolve all your issues, no there is not a magical pill but a scientifically designed product that fits well in a lady’s vagina and stops the blood from coming out and instead collects in itself.

The life of one Menstrual cup is around 8-10 years and I have been using one for the past 5+ years. I had to buy a new one after 3 years as I lost mine while traveling.

Daily Green Habits – 1st Change I made for an Eco-Friendly Lifestyle

I had to try a few different brands in the beginning to suit my size and comfort level but DIVA Menstrual Cup met all my needs.

DIVA Menstrual Cup has excellent features and I have been using the same cup for past few years.

  • Silicone Cup Size & Capacity:
    • There are various models available.
      • Model 0 holds the equivalent of 4 regular tampons of flow, making it ideal for slim vaginal canals and first-time menstrual cup users.
      • Model 2 holds the equivalent of 6 regular tampons of flow, ideal for heavy flows, post-partum, wide vaginal canals, and people ages 35+.
  • Reliable Silicone Menstrual Cup: DIVA Cup is made from 100% medical grade silicone, ensuring safety and durability for people who menstruate; plastic-free and dye-free.
  • Reusable Period Care Product: Our DIVA Cup is safe for up to 12 hours of continuous use; then, simply wash thoroughly and insert again. I have been using it in my office where washing is not possible, I just wipe it with toilet paper and reinserted it and had no issues in the past 8+ years.
  • Menstrual Cup Design Features: The cup includes leak-resistant air holes for a secure seal and visible flow lines for easy tracking, so you can know your flow.

There are several options available in the market on Amazon which you can review and decide. Just make sure that they fit your size.

Getting used to Menstrual cup did take me a while like around 2-3 months during which I used sanitary pads just to avoid any incidents.

There are several videos available on youtube to know how to use Menstrual cup.

Daily Green Habits: How to use DIVA Menstrual Cup

Soon when the time comes for my daughter, I will only be giving her Menstrual cup, No sanitary pads or tampons for her. She will start her periods with good daily green habits.

There is another detailed post explaining all zero-waste period products “3 Powerful Solutions for Periods: Zero Waste Menstrual Products for Sustainable Living. You can check that out too.

These are just top simple changes I made in my journey towards sustainability. There are few more, which you can check out in subsequent parts.

Small request to all my readers, don’t try to implement all the changes in one go. Start with any one change and let it become a habit. Most of the changes you can start it alone but its always better if your family and friends are in it with you. As we shop for groceries as a family, so I do need my partner and kids to understand and shop accordingly.

These are just some of my habits and I am sure there is still room for improvement, please feel free to share your experiences in the comments and let me know what are you doing for your sustainable journey. We all can learn from each other.

Though I am onto my sustainable lifestyle journey for past 8+ years, its very recently I started writing on the insistence of my friends. Its one of my close friends comments “There is so much of information available on the internet but none of it sounds personal. Write your personal experience and I am sure many people will benefit from it”. So here I am trying my best to write these things as My Daily Green Habits.

Powerful Daily Green Habits I Adopted for a Eco-Friendly Lifestyle – Series 2

You can check out my other posts here.

https://www.allnecessities.com

12 thoughts on “Powerful Daily Green Habits I Adopted for an Eco-Friendly Lifestyle – Series 1”

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