Sustainability Tips by Bianca DR

Are you moving or recently moved? Do you know someone that is moving? If you live in Canada, you know that the designated moving day is right around the corner. As someone who recently moved, I'd like to offer some sustainable tips based on my experience. Also, lots of these tips can be used when you have your own place and just want to make some small sustainable changes. Step 1 - Decluttering Once you know your move-in date, you will likely want to start packing ASAP. However, before you can really start packing, the best thing you can do is declutter. This definitely can be done at the same time as packing, but should be prioritized. You don't want to bring things you don't need or don't like into your new space. Once you've separated out all the things you don't need anymore, you must figure out what you want to do with them. Are they worth something? If so, maybe you can post the items online and try to sell them! This definitely applies to furniture. Why n...

Happy Earth Day! Since 1970, April 22nd has become a monumental day in environmental activism that allows us to reflect on how our individual actions impact our environment. Activists have used Earth Day to really voice their concerns about the future of our planet and the current state of our deteriorating environment. We, as citizens and individuals, should reflect on how we can help create a cleaner environment and a more sustainable future! As kids, we’ve learned the 3 Rs: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. Reduce: buy less things to minimize your consumption. Reuse: purchase second-hand items or transform items for another purpose rather than throwing them away. Recycling: throw your items into a bin so that they could be collected, then transformed and manufactured into another material. In Canada, we throw all our recyclables into one bin, which includes paper, plastic, metal, and glass. Materials like paper, cardboard, and aluminium are easy to recycle, but plastics could only be do...

I hope you're all staying home and staying safe. Although some people have the option to work from home or have virtual classes to study for, there are many people who have a large amount of free time on their hands. If you haven't come up with activities to keep busy, this post will hopefully inspire you with some ideas that will keep you entertained without harming the planet! You may have heard the saying: reduce , reuse , recycle , but I'd like to add two more items, refuse (say no to non-ecofriendly products) and rot (to compost as often as possible). I try to keep these five things in mind for every item that I purchase or discard. Decluttering This is a perfect time to do some spring cleaning! Take the time to clean out your closet, your wardrobes, your book shelf, or go through old papers, old toys, old souvenirs. Decluttering will definitely help you feel refreshed and ready to go when the world goes back to normal. Keep reading for some of my recent declutter...

During the month of February, my family and I took part in the Futuristic February challenge by @sustainable_duo. You can learn more about it in my previous post. I competed against my mother, brother, and boyfriend to see who could waste the least throughout the month. Biggest challenge: respecting the rules The biggest issue was that none of us seemed to completely respect the rules. We weren’t supposed to throw anything in the garbage or recycling bin and yet both containers had waste in them (although much less than usual). Some examples would be: Since the rest of my family eats meat, they didn’t want to keep the packaging that the meat came in due to its likelihood to attract bugs or grow mold. Common items that we all use like almond milk, cans of beans, juice cartons, etc. were all recycled when really we should have kept them in a separate bag or taken turns keeping them. None of us wanted to keep my cats litter so we gladly got rid of it, nor her cans of food which we...

The day of celebrating love is right around the corner. Are you fed up of buying or doing the same things every year? I’m sure you want to switch it up but struggle to figure out what to do or get, especially when all you see are advertisements of the same ideas every year. Not in a relationship? You can still use this holiday to express your love to anybody important in your life. Continue reading for some eco-friendly takes on the typical Valentine’s Day gift. Flowers? Again? One of the most common gifts for Valentine’s Day is flowers. Thousands of flowers are grown, purchased and given around this time of year. Although it can be wonderful to have a full vase of flowers on display, they unfortunately don’t last that long, end up dying and being thrown out. It seems pretty pointless to go through all that effort of growing the flowers, importing them from South America (it is the middle of winter so that’s where they usually come from), just for them to die a few weeks later if the...

Do you ever wonder how much waste you create in a day? In a month? Well, there's a challenge by @sustainable_duo that is about to start called Futuristic February. Throughout the month of February, you must save all the non-perishable waste (this includes recycled materials) that you make. At the end of the month, take a picture of it all and post it using the hashtag #FuturisticFebruary. Does thinking about keeping all your trash for a full month make you want to vomit? Well, maybe that's a sign that you need to find ways to reduce your waste. This post will contain some easy ideas that you can start to apply and add to your routine, so that by the end of the month, you have almost nothing to show. Firstly, what do you even throw out? Think about it for a bit and try to see if any of these items can be recycled (cardboard, clean plastic, aluminum, etc.) or composted (food waste, paper towels, napkins, etc.) instead. If that's the case, then try to hold on to your waste...