Personal Environmental Contributions at Home: It all starts here | Author: Andriy Kumanovskyy

As a continuation of sorts for the introduction article ‘Why We Choose Reduce and Reuse’, it would not make sense to leave things off without offering some practical bits of tips and motivation. The goal is to offer a few tangible options which are implemented in my current home and may offer a little bit of insight into the possible applications of Reducing and Reusing. The goal of these tips and ideas is to present them in a way that applies to everybody -- not just those who are working in an environmentally related field. Some thought provoking ideas will be presented as well.

Coming from the west side of Ukraine by Ivano-Frankivsk near the border of the Carpathian Mountains, my family and I always grew up with a sense of love and wonder for nature. However, knowing what was the best for it, and making sure those decisions stick habitually, wasn’t always a clear cut answer. Luckily, over the years I’ve found that many things which are good for the environment, our home, are also the things that make economic sense, and in many cases bring joy to a significant sum of people.

Besides pursuing a calling in engineering to mitigate climate change and improve ecosystem health, I’ve also been looking for innovative ways to apply and advocate this responsibility we all have towards nature in a way that is accessible. The following is a short list and general summary of the Reduce and Reuse solutions that I and my family have been implementing at home here in Canada over the years, which are also easy to implement!

Reducing and Reusing at Home!

• Utilizing reusable water bottles! Reusing the containers of water not only eliminates waste but removed the greenhouse gas (GHG) impact of bottle production and recycling (in even the best case scenario).

• Using reusable shopping / grocery bags! This was discussed in more detail in ‘Article 1’: ‘Why We Choose Reduce and Reuse.

• Considering carpooling, and choosing an eco-friendly or at least energy efficient gasoline car. This reduces the GHG emissions associated with transportation. Bonus points if you choose to live relatively close to your place of employment and frequent amenities.

• Going bulk shopping for sustainable groceries where possible, utilizing reusable containers, ideally glass for potential health effects with hormone disrupting plastic.

• Storing, fermenting food in glass containers. This is an interesting and healthy way to spice up a usual diet of food and to avoid the urge to go out to eat as often -- often times utilizing transportation.

• Using the seeds and stock from fruits and vegetables to plant edible food year-round to supplement our food source and reduce the need for transportation to grocery stores. Contributions in the future will discuss motivation for growing and various planting techniques.

• Reducing the consumption of meat down to once or twice a week, with the goal of going a lot further within the next year. A future article will go into more detail regarding the relative GHG emissions associated with eating meat vs reducing its consumption.

• DIY projects like plastic bottle pop-sockets, jean textile phone straps. In a future article we will be going into detail about some of these DIY projects.

• Turning off lights and electronics when are they not in use, this reduces the overall energy usage of the house, and to some degree, GHG emissions (especially in places where energy production isn’t as clean as in Canada).

Once some of these were implemented and habitual, the advocacy became joyfully contagious to friends and family. Perhaps new ideas and ways of applying the ‘Reduce and Reuse’ concept will also come to being through discussions with others.

Going Beyond the Home and into the Wild

Where possible, advocating for environmental initiatives, volunteering, are other options which have endless possibilities to help nature, community building as well as many ailments related to the overuse of technology (This explains the need I’ve developed for frequent nature breaks amidst events). At the very least it is our responsibility to take care of our home -- where we live, to make sure that it stays thriving for generations to come. We need to implement little changes that when accumulated add to large effects, both with waste and net GHG emissions reductions. We need to give pressure to our government and policy makers of their responsibility beyond a 4 year service period. The planet will likely be fine without us, it’s us and other creatures that would have to suffer if we don’t act on our responsibility -- we are in a critical time. One thing that has been rather clear was that advocating became a lot more intuitive once the changes were implemented with me first, doing what I currently can and always looking for ways to improve.

While I am not perfect with regards to this, I approach my goal of being not only carbon neutral, but carbon negative -- a regenerative approach that, with all things considered, allows an entity to remove more carbon than it consumes. Such approaches include planting trees to (more than) completely offset expenditures with eating, commuting, consuming products, etc. Other applications include living in a carbon zero or carbon negative house (utilizing renewable energy for at least all of the house’s expenditures). This is the goal once my career and family life is a little bit more stable -- both financially and logistically.

Some future articles and contributions will be of people on their own who have utilized these approaches even further, and who are finding ways to make it even easier, and budget friendly to be conscious about the environment.