Sharetools

Thursday, July 15, 2021

Frugal Ways to Live Greener and Healthier at Home


Environmental and Health Tips at Colors 4 Health

Do you think of your home and garden or apartment as your castle, and want it to be a place that's a sanctuary, a healthy, green haven for your family and you?

Look below to find 

Frugal Ways to Live Greener and Healthier at Home

This post has been updated 9/8/2021


Greening your living space to enhance your health and lifestyle is as simple and economical as taking one small step at a time.


1. Improve the air quality of your home or apartment by installing and properly maintaining a carbon  monoxide detector. 

Read "Carbon Monoxide's Impact on Indoor Air Quality" from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). 

Get information and tips about preventing serious illness or death from carbon monoxide poisoning, from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention too.

CDC Infographic Carbon Monoxide Poisoning

2. Keep your abode fragrance free and smoke free. Swap out toxic cleaning materials and eliminate household pests with eco-friendly products.

For details read "Ten Simple Ways to Clean Green" and Green Tips for "Pest Control."

All green products mentioned in posts above are less expensive and healthier to use than most conventional cleaning and exterminating products. 

One epic rule of thumb is to read every commercial cleaning product label before you decide to purchase or reject it.

It's key to read labels on pest control products as well. Avoid damaging skin, eyes, lungs, and harming the health of adults, children, and pets with products that pollute, contaminate, and adversely affect all living things on our planet.

Using eco-friendly soap, detergent, shampoo and the like prevents skin irritation, allergies, and illness for you and yours. It also makes it unnecessary to dispose of polluting or toxic materials down the drain or dumping containers they came in into a landfill.

3. Use renewable, sustainable, low carbon-footprint items for kitchen, bath, bedroom, and laundry room. Aim to limit new purchases to only those things that are beyond repair. 

Reusable Household Cleaning Cloths are Eco-friendly



Fix, recycle, and refinish what you have accumulated already. Choosing high quality over quantity, and sustainability, minimalism, streamlining, and simplifying are frugal, long-lasting ways to create a greener, healthier home.

Want more green swap ideas? Use glass and stainless storage containers instead of plastic. After you finish eating peanut or almond butter (ones that come in glass jars), store-bought salad dressing, and foods like apple sauce, olives, and pickles, recycle the glass for food storage. 

Food Storage Containers that are Eco-friendly

Dry off with organic bath towels instead of conventional ones, display live houseplants instead of artificial ones, use non-toxic house paint instead of those with lead, upcycle clothing from thrift stores instead of buying new, and only wash clothes in your washing machine if you have a full load.

Get your kids and grandkids to join in. Show them by your example how to recycle, reuse, conserve, and respect our precious natural resources and the planet. For more read Awesome Tips to Help You Raise Greener Kids .



4. Green your eating style and swap out meat, poultry, fish, eggs, and dairy for whole food plant-based foods.


Become more of an environmental maven or mister. Convert to foods that are mostly or all plant-based to make a major contribution to reducing your carbon footprint. "An Oxford University Study, published in the journal Climatic Change, shows that meat-eaters are responsible for almost twice as many dietary greenhouse-gas emissions per day as vegetarians and about two and a half times as many as vegans."

Improve health, increase your sense of well-being, save money, and recognize it's the humane and right thing to do.

Vegan Recipes, Ideras, and Eco-friendly Tips


5. Green your vision. Think of and follow through with one or two eco-friendly changes each week. 

Landscape with drought resistant vegetation, and plant and maintain a veggie garden. Grow and eat food for self-sustainability, and know that you're contributing to planetary healing.

Replace grass with xeriscape landscaping. Use drip irrigation to conserve water and store water in retention containers to save rainwater. 

An added benefit of this type of garden is that it’s much easier and more inexpensive to keep up than ones with grass and lawns.

Use your garden for entertaining. Instead of eating in a restaurant, sit at a picnic table in your garden or at a park. This is a free and fun way to get social with family or friends.

6. Notify lawmakers and regulators to go green by phoning, emailing, texting. Use social media to alert manufacturers, politicians, and leaders in your community, state, and national governments about environmental issues.

Express your concerns about the direct environmental link between health, safety, and climate change with the use of plastics, toxic chemicals in cleaning products, fossil fuel consumption, cattle raising and meat and poultry production, pesticides including Roundup, and contamination from manufacturing by-products.  

Advocate for home goods made from biodegradable materials, ones that use
minimal packaging. Set the intention to move toward zero waste. 

Mesh Food Shopping Bag, and Eco-friendly Tip



Purchase only as much food as you can eat without waste. Learn how to incorporate every edible part of foods you grow or buy. Two examples are beets and celery

Compost any raw produce scraps either in your compost pile or in a community one. 

Don’t patronize companies, shops, stores, and businesses that contribute to global warming. 

What you buy and don't buy speaks louder than words. Show friends, family, and community that you are reducing the world's carbon footprint, and soon they will follow suit. 

Support those manufacturers, distributors, and organizations who have made a real effort to create zero waste, increase sustainable business practices, and developed and maintain eco-friendly programs and policies.

There are so many frugal, easy ways to live greener and healthier at home.

What things are you doing to conserve natural resources, use less plastic, eat cleaner and greener, and simplify living by using any of the methods outlined above? 

Please share in the comments section ๐Ÿ’–below. 

What new things did you learn about green living? ๐ŸŒŽ

Do you save money by cleaning with homemade cleaning products? Please explain.

What creative ideas do you have for living greener at home? 

I read every comment and email I receive. Just remember to put no links in your comment, as it won't be published that way.

I post on the 1st and 15th of each month. Please add www.colors4health.com to your online reading list, as I offer wellness and color tips at the place where a healthy lifestyle and colors intersect. 

See my Facebook page, Pinterest location, and Website too. 

 


This post has been shared at SSPS#272


This post has been shared at Home Matters Linky Party #382

This post is featured at Taking-things-as-they-come-at-the-hearth-and-soul-link-party. Thrilled and honored.




This post has been shared at thursday-favorite-things-party Aug 12 Post is #108



This post has been shared at thursday-favorite-things-501.html #53


This post has been shared at unlimited-link-party-31 Post #67


This post has been shared at Dare to Share #4 My post is #46




This post has been shared at thursday-favorite-things-party


This post has been shared at unlimited-link-party-30

This post has been shared at unlimited-link-party-31

16 comments:

  1. Good informationn to help the planet. Thanks for writing this.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks for the comment and affirmation Have a beautiful day.

      Delete
  2. Thanks so much for linking up with me at the Unlimited Link Party 30. Pinned!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks for the visit, comment, and hosting Unlimited Link Party.

      Delete
    2. So many great suggestions Nan. I do some of them already, but there's always room for improvement.

      Delete
    3. Thanks Beth. Agree with you about there is always room for improvement. I recently cancelled a paper magazine subscription and changed it over to online to save the forest one tree at a time. Hugs, Nan

      Delete
    4. Nancy,
      Many of your suggestions really made me stop and think- very helpful. I used to make some of my own cleaning products with essential oils but I found it to be quite expensive since I would sometimes need 40 drops of an oil for a cleaning solution.

      Delete
    5. Thanks Judee for the visit and comment. Have a beautiful weekend.

      Delete
  3. Excellent rundown on the many things we can do to help our world. When I moved to Tucson, one of my first green house acts was to put solar panels on the house. Then I became a vegan which, of course, is great for our planet. I learned recently via the film Seaspiracy that most of the plastic floating in our oceans come from plastic fishing lines. Another green act then is for everyone to stop eating fish!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Happy Vegan Couple for the comment and good ideas for greening living. Appreciate the feedback. Are you happy to have so much rain the last few days? This part of the country (SW)sure needs it, and I feel blessed! Happy Weekend and stay safe and well.

      Delete
  4. I use vinegar in my home for so many cleaning tasks. I add natural organic essential oils to it to minimise the vinegar smell. I shop locally, sustainably as often as I can, and source all my seafood from sustainable fishermen located on the coast of England. Thank you for sharing this great practical advice to benefit both individuals and the planet with the Hearth and Soul Link party, Nancy. I'm featuring this post at the part this week. Hope you are having a lovely weekend.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thrilled and honored to be featured at your wonderful blog party and so appreciate you hosting. I use vinegar too in my home. In fact, I plan to use baking soda and vinegar to clean the shower. Wishing you a beautiful day and thanks so much for the feature.

      Delete
  5. Visiting again to say thanks so much for linking up with me at the Unlimited Link Party 31. Pinned again!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Lots and lots of good tips! Thank you for sharing at the #HomeMattersParty.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Allyson for the visit, comment, and hosting #HomeMattersParty. Have a lovely weekend and be well.

      Delete