Busting 3 Common Myths of Green Living
Have you always wanted to start living sustainably but feel turned off because it’s more expensive, takes too much effort, and what you do won’t count anyway? Well, what if I told you it’s the complete opposite? Living sustainably is actually cheaper, makes life easier, and is so effortless to make a big impact. As someone who’s been living sustainably for the past 10 years, let me bust those common myths. Let me bust these 3 common myths of green living.
- Shopping sustainable is more expensive
- One person alone can’t make a difference.
- Green living takes too much effort.
Myth 1: Shopping sustainable is more expensive.
No need to break out the calculator for this. The cost-savings illustration is very simple. Switching to cloth towels (the sustainable choice) instead of using paper towels to mop up kitchen spills saves money. A roll of paper towel cost $1.30. And cloth towels? It’s free. Old t-shirts or any cloth can be transformed to cloth towels for your kitchen. Imagine, when you use a paper towel, you are throwing away your dollars every time you wipe up a spill. It’s like throwing away your money every time you throw a piece of paper towel in the trash. But using a cloth towel means you are saving your dollars.
What about sustainable clothes? It’s supposed to be more expensive than their fast fashion counter-part. But what if I tell you sustainable clothes are cheaper than fast fashion? Yup, the most sustainable clothes you can ever own costs zero. How so? Shop your closet instead of buying new. The truth is, the most sustainable thing you can own is the one already in your closet.
Truth: Embracing the green lifestyle helps you save your dollars.
Myth 2: One person can’t make a difference
No one is 100% green but every change you make in the direction of sustainability leads to a result. Even something as simple as switching to a reusable water bottle, that one action alone will divert 365 water bottles (or a year’s worth of drinking one bottle of water a day) from the landfill.
Pretty impressive results from just one action. At the end of the day, each action will have a corresponding consequence. Whether that consequence will be for or against Mother Earth, that all depends on our individual actions.
Truth: One person’s action is enough to help Mother Earth.
Myth 3: Green living takes too much effort
Green living takes too much effort if you make things complicated. There are easy hacks that makes sustainability run on auto-pilot in your life.
One such hack is switching to energy efficient appliances. Just taking this one action will make sustainability part of your daily life. You can swap your regular air conditioning unit for an inverter one. Or your fluorescent lights to LED lights.
Switching to more efficient appliances is the most effortless way to embrace the green lifestyle. As an added bonus, it also cuts down your electricity bill. You get to save your dollars while saving the environment.
Truth: Green living takes as much effort as regular living.
Now that I’ve busted those common myths of green living, it’s time to try sustainable living and see how it fits your life. Just remember, you just have to start, and the rest will follow. Try one sustainable habit every week, if it doesn’t work for you, discard it and keep the ones that works for you.
At the end of the day, sustainability is about caring for the Earth you live in. If you care, just do the best you can and move from there. It would surprise you that a year into this lifestyle, you’ve already done a lot for Mother Earth easily and effortlessly.
About the Author: Jean Ong
Jean Ong is the founder of Ecolover United, a movement that makes it easier for the everyday folk to live sustainably and in style. She graduated college with a degree in Business Management major in Marketing, she currently work as a store manager by day, and an Earth Hero at night and on the weekends.
She’s a keen nature lover, maybe this came from fulfilling the prophetic nature of getting her name? Her Chinese name is Lin, meaning forest or grove of trees. She believes that: if it’s good for Mother Earth, it’s good for you.
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