1. Take a second look at how you're food handling.

When managing the fridge, produce should be kept clean and washed before being stowed. Keep your fridge fresh by using all-natural cleaners to avoid toxic chemicals and by washing preservatives off of fruits and vegetables before introduction to the kitchen.

Aside from what we're putting our food in, we should be conscious of how we portion our produce. Make a smaller serving than necessary, and take more if you are still hungry. No wasted food comes back. Food that ended up in the trash broke down among other pieces of waste where, when trapped in between them, the material rots and generates bacteria -feeding pulps. Like momma said, "there are children starving for that!"

Leftovers can be stored in glass containers or BPA-free, hard plastic containers. Plastic wrap can be replaced with organic reusable food wraps made up of paper, beeswax, or even small manufactured fibers. With an investment of about $20, one can completely avoid the monthly fee of about $5 for a new box of plastic wrap. If you manage to keep up with your purchase, within 4 months you will have saved about 560 ft. of plastic. The standard could be different for the restaurant industry, as plastic creates an excellent air-tight seal, but it should be on the list of products to replace within the marketplace in order to get rid of plastic.

Food waste is a leading problem globally. About one-third of all food in the world is wasted. It ends up lost in processing, scraped off of plates that have been bussed back at restaurants, or chucked into the garbage to find itself in rotting landfills. Food that is rotten attracts bacteria, and when food ends up in the garbage, versus in a belly or in the compost, it breeds many pests and keeps a cloud of rotting gasses and bacteria around it.

If we set a precedent to educate the people on where all of our trash goes and what it is like to be in those places, we can raise awareness about our current lifestyle and the direction it needs to change in. If we don't want to see the Earth overrun by pests or get hit with the brick wall of unpleasant gas that surrounds dumpsites, we need to change what we use. Plastic is cheap- that's all. I am not going to kill a company to transition out of plastic products into paper ones. It will kill the Earth if we don't, though. Guess what? We happen to live here. Either make the choice to change, or die in the slow gaseous and dead way that the earth will go if its humans who have industrialized the place don't fix it.

2. Monitor your to-go consumption concerning meals brought into the house.

By choosing to make simple habit changes you save yourself money in the grand cycle of food purchasing by reducing the store's production and packaging cost. When it comes to bringing food into the kitchen, I frequently ask others if they use reusable bags. By making the habit of returning them to the vehicle or leaving them by the door, we make the impact. You can use a cute paper sign or a sign and hook combo to designate an area for the reusable bags. By doing so, you give the items a special, useful space in your home. If you do not own any, I suggest you invest in some. It costs about one cent to create a plastic bag that has no place to go once the user gets irritated of it being around.

The lazy reality of plastic production has done something terrible for the Earth, in my educated opinion. Waterways are full of this repulsive, melting, coagulated polymer that has no way to be properly disposed of and no way to return to dirt. Landfills bein to cast shadows on our cities because plastic doesn't break into small enough particles until hundreds of years later. When the plastic degrades in those environments, the soil will most likely be useless.

Imagine, that plastic bag you used for the grand total average of 12 minutes, remaining on the earth for two of your lifetimes. Refer to BBC's Blue Planet II narrated by Sir David Attenborough to understand what's been going on with global plastic pollution if you'd like to see some of the effects of plastic on the earth environment post-disposal. The sheer amount of how much plastic is being produced shows that there is a blind eye being turned out of greed. Now the poor choices of industry behemoths have turned this matter into a consumer responsibility.

It is up to us as responsible consumers to invest in ways that businesses compensate us.

We use reusable bags. We buy Reusable straws or use sip lids. We invest in the

Metal straws?

Your own utensils?

The "luxury" of eating with disposable items is no longer in fashion! Express yourself and deliberate about which brands of reusable cutlery, containers, and bottles are your favorites.

Otherwise, you can ask your favorite local restaurants to consider going sustainable or degradable wit their packaging! not only will you have built a stronger relationship with your favorite restaurant, but you will have made a project that both restaurants and advocates can contribute to making a community have a smaller carbon footprint! Make sure the solution makes sense- no cutting corners with obviously plastic containers that need to be put through a special decomposition process to be biodegradable; instead, search for cardboard to-go boxes or paper cup-and-top fit bowls.

3. Re-evaluate your clothing expenses.

Do you purchase cheap accessories like poor-quality earrings or plated necklaces? If only for a one-time wear quick-fix, I could recommend the thirteen-dollar necklace that's in-trend. Otherwise, I wouldn't waste my time or money by keeping accessories like that. It's like after a month of use, the item no longer lasts. For me, it's really difficult to part with a piece of jewellery that came unplated or glasses that don't look the way they used to after only digging their style for a month. I have learned that, over time, and to keep a more capsulated wardrobe, it's definitely worth the money to invest in more expensive and more durable products. A pair of sunglasses that cost anywhere from fifty to two-hundred dollars will actually protect your eyes from UV rays and will make you care more about your little, fashionable eye-protectors before you throw them into the back seat of your car.

The disposable fashion industry has siphoned money out of young women's pockets by selling us thin, easily breakable, non-integral fabrics and designs for a fast cash turn-over on outsourced textiles and labor. The amount of money one spends to stay in trend with the fast-paced fashion industry is in gross compared to how much shoppers can save by building a wardrobe of your own. Of course, if there is something on-trend that agrees with you, by all means, you should buy it. I am simply stating that once you have your favorite items, they should have the dollar-to-stitch quality that will last you for more than 6 months. Personally, I do not change much in weight over the year, so I can keep my clothing selections rather sporadic as far as which end of the closet I am grabbing from. If the case is not the same for you, then you get to have double the fun and maybe a different palette selection for the new season by keeping winter and summer capsules.

Also, another really important aspect of keeping waste out of your closet is buying clothing only when you need to! If shopping for clothes is something you entertain yourself with, the set a budget- and don't feel like you have to buy every time. You can save the money you budget from one month, where you're too busy to manage a closet, for another, when that new line of handbags is released. Really, budgeting is the answer to everything, but it is especially important to put a number cap in your head or notes to save for what is important, whether that is a vacation, or simply another purchase.