Oftentimes, doing things in a more sustainable way means doing them the old-fashioned way-buying bar soap instead of bottles of body wash, for example, or hanging clothes on a line versus running the dryer.
Making small tweaks to our routines can pay off big in various ways: helping the planet while saving you time, money, or both. With that in mind, we've compiled 12 easy steps that will help you go the most distance. We hope you'll be surprised by how big a difference you can make with relatively little effort.
1 Up your recycling game.
Even if you're good about toting your newspapers and cat food cans to the curb each week, you're probably tossing other items that could (and should!) go into those blue bins. Think foil, bubble wrap, wire hangers-when recycled, all can turn into things you might not expect, including car bumpers, carpeting, comic books, egg cartons, nails, and trash bags, according to the EPA.
Other items, such as dead batteries, spent light bulbs, empty ink cartridges, and used motor oil, should be taken to dedicated collection centers (often the stores where you bought them) for recycling. If that seems like a hassle, consider the alternative: These would otherwise spend centuries in landfills. Plastic can take up to 450 years to decompose; aluminum, 200 years; and glass, a million years.
2 Don't crush your cans.
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Denne historien er fra October 2022-utgaven av Reader's Digest US.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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Pier Pressure - A brutal storm rips a floating beachside store from its moorings, sending it and its occupants out to sea
A brutal storm rips a floating beachside store from its moorings, sending it and its occupants out to sea. It was around 6:30 on a June morning in 2023, and a Facebook post caught Boyd Jordan's eye. Shell Isle Mercantile, a floating store that sold beachgoing fare-sunglasses, inflatables, food, umbrellas-had been ripped from its moorings on Shell Island, just off Florida's northern Gulf Coast, by a storm the night before and had floated 3 miles across the bay to Panama City.
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