Top 8 Practical Ways to Reduce Your Carbon Footprint

With the unlimited amenities in our lives from using air conditioners in the scorching heat, having personal transport to travel easily, doing impulsive shopping just because there is a new collection launched, and buying new electronic gadgets for the same reason, all together harm our environment.

One such harm is the widening carbon footprint of humans on Earth. Over the years there has been a 50% increase in carbon footprint, from the Industrial Revolution to the present.

Pieter Tans, a senior scientist at National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) — United State’s environmental intelligence agency — says this about carbon footprint:
“We have known about this (carbon dioxide) for half a century, and have failed to do anything meaningful about it. What’s it going to take for us to wake up?”
It is time we put collective climate change action at the forefront of all our decision-making and efforts and do all we can to bring a meaningful change in the conversation.

What Is Carbon Footprint?

The Carbon Footprint is the total amount of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane etc. which are produced as a result of human activity.

These gases affect our environment and play a catastrophic role in climate change.
Some basic lifestyle changes can shrink our carbon footprint significantly. Things like:

• Recycling
• Donating
• Avoiding food wastage
• Not throwing trash in landfills
• And several others.

Practicing a conscious lifestyle can help us co-exist with the planet in a much healthier and sustainable way.

8 Ways to Reduce Carbon Footprint From the Planet

Here are some of the easiest steps you can take to bring the most impactful change in your daily carbon footprint.

1. Keep Your Trash Away From The Landfills

Our trash which we casually toss in our landfills plays a great role in carbon footprints because the landfills emit methane which contributes to the carbon footprints.
The good news about methane is that, compared to CO2, it evaporates into the atmosphere more quickly. However, during this brief evaporation, methane causes significant harm to our environment.

How to keep trash away from landfills?

There are some easy and practical ways through which you can keep the trash away from landfills and play your part in reducing carbon footprints.

By less packaging: Buy products with less packaging to avoid landfills.

Reuse: Adapt the habit of reusing old things and never change them for the sake of a new upgrade. For example: you can do DIY decor on plastic bottles and use it as decor in your house instead of throwing it in the trash.

Use rechargeable batteries: Use rechargeable batteries instead of disposable ones so you don't have to throw away the old ones when it's dead to harm the environment.

2. Practice Waste Recycling

Practice secure IT asset disposal and e-waste recycling to save the climate from its effects. From mattresses, clothes, electronics, and whatnot!
Whatever you are considering a waste may not be an actual waste for many people, so try to find a way to refurbish and recycle it to avoid tossing things into the trash.

How you can refurbish or reuse the waste?

• You can sell your clothes on any online platform since lots of people wear used clothes. This way you can make some money without throwing away your old clothes.
• Take your old laptop or other electronic devices to a nearby e-waste recycling center instead of throwing them away. They will check it out and fix it if they find any problems. So you won't have to spend money on a new one. You can also sell the used one and use the money to buy the newer model or just simply donate it.

You can explore the local recyclers near your area to get more info about them and learn more about their ways of recycling goods.

3. Avoid Buying Plastic

Studies show that since the start of COVID-19, the amount of plastic waste has grown significantly, and an estimated 800 million tons will be produced by 2050.

If you have been waiting for it, this is your cue to start saying “No!” to plastics.
Instead of buying bottled water, purchase water tumblers or stainless steel bottles that you can refill with water at home, work, or restaurants. This single action alone can help you do your bit to keep an average of 156 plastic bottles from filling our oceans annually.

It not only helps you reduce your carbon footprint but saves marine life and improves the health of oceans too.

4. Drive Less

We know that people don’t like to travel by public transport because they are always jam-packed with commuters, mostly with limited seats available, long lines, and whatnot.

However, driving also impacts climate change and produces pollution in our environment. More cars on the road means more fuel needed and polluted air released into the environment. It also means more drilling for fossil fuels and more greenhouse gases in the climate.

The best solution to that is driving less and instead taking advantage of things like carpooling and even cycling. By keeping the bulk of cars away from the roads, you make a direct contribution to healing the environment.

5. Don’t Shop Impulsively

An estimated 11.3 million tons of textile waste which is equal to 85% of all textiles, are disposed of in landfills each year in America alone, which is about 2,150 pieces per second nationwide and about 81.5 pounds (37 kilograms) per person annually.

As we know almost all the brands offer collections of all 4 seasons to lure customers to shop for each season differently, but this practice is leaving carbon footprints on our globe. When we shop impulsively and throw away our old clothes, it drastically impacts the environment.

To stop doing this, we need to stop buying clothes without any solid reason and opt for vintage or second-hand clothes so that we can play our role in reducing the carbon footprint of the world.

6. Avoid Wasting Food

Throwing and wasting food is not a good habit in general.
It is also bad for the environment as the waste food goes into the landfills where it rots and then converts into methane gas which causes harm to the environment.
To avoid wasting food you need to limit the grocery items so that it doesn’t gets rot and you don’t have to throw it.
Buy groceries for weeks instead of months and don’t cook bulk food, try to leave no leftovers which in the end, end up in waste.

7. Donate Things

If you want to upgrade to the newest electronic device like a phone or laptop or if you want to buy new clothes, then instead of throwing it the best you can do is to donate things to the needy!
This way you will play your part in reducing the e-waste and carbon prints.

8. Buy Eco-Friendly Products

Another thing you can do is to shift to eco-friendly products that are free of chemicals and their sole purpose is to save the environment from the harsh effects of chemicals.

Many brands offer eco-friendly products, do your research and you’ll find environmentally-friendly options for almost all the products.

Final Words!

We understand that nobody wants to be cut off from their amenities as everyone loves to have comfort and all sorts of facilities in life.

But if we look at the speed through which the carbon footprints are increasing, that day is not far when our globe will be crushed under it.

So, it is time we all take the right steps to reduce the increasing carbon footprints in our world to make our globe livable and free from all hazardous substances.