Tag: eco-friendly

How To Start Living A Low-Waste Lifestyle

On July 24, 2020

It’s never too late to start living a more sustainable lifestyle. While one person can’t stop climate change, a collective effort to live with less waste can definitely help the environment. By consciously making better choices, you can gradually reduce your impact on the world around you.

We understand that it can be daunting to immediately make a major transition towards sustainable living. Start your eco-friendly journey with these simple resolutions:

Bring Your Own Containers And Utensils

Bringing your own water bottle wherever you go is one of the easiest ways to reduce your waste output. The price per bottle adds up to a hefty sum in the long run, and the empty bottles can pile up. By investing in a filtration system for your home and a cute water bottle, you won’t have to spend so much money on bottled water again.

The same thing goes for takeout containers and disposable utensils–the waste can pile up, increasing your carbon footprint. A microwaveable container and reusable utensils won’t take up much room in your bag and will make a sizeable dent in your plastic waste.

Shop Smartly

Instead of heading to the mall to get new clothes or furniture, why not duck into a thrift store instead to look for items you can reuse? There’s nothing wrong with buying secondhand: By breathing new life into vintage pieces, you can add character to your home (or wardrobe) while saving money.

Eat More Fruits and Vegetables

The global demand for meat is a major contributor to climate change. If this makes you feel a bit guilty, remember that vegan or vegetarian meals can be tasty, nutritious, and cheaper than dishes with meat and dairy products. You can take it one step further by planting your own home garden: by growing your own produce, you can save on food costs and even make extra money by selling to your neighbors and loved ones.

Reuse Things

Before you throw away something, consider first if you can repurpose it. Maybe the paper bag you’re about to dispose of can be reused as a gift bag or a trash can liner. That plastic container you’re about to toss can be a suitable container for art supplies or small knickknacks. If it’s still usable, keep it–you never know when it might come in handy.

Commute Responsibly

Getting around everywhere in a car can make a dent in your wallet (and can really bump up your emissions). Using public transportation might be a bit inconvenient, but it’s an easy way to reduce your carbon footprint and save money. Plus, walking or biking can count as a workout, so you’ll be hitting two birds with one eco-friendly stone.

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash

Mars Salazar

Marianne is Nixplay’s Web Content Editor. Her hobbies include exploring new places, playing table tennis, and cuddling puppies. Send her a message at marianne.salazar@nixplay.com.

How To Celebrate Earth Day, Every Day

By Mars Salazar

On April 23, 2019

In Lifestyle

Earth Day may be held on April 22, but if you ask us, we should be celebrating it every day. It just doesn’t seem right to impose a 24-hour window for becoming an eco-warrior. The Earth is the only planet we have, after all: We should do everything in our power to take care of it and keep it beautiful so our children and their children will have a better world to live in.

That said, here are some easy measures you and your loved ones can do to reduce your carbon footprint and contribute to a cleaner, greener, better world. Read on!

Pick up litter when you’re out and about

Trash is never a nice sight, whether it’s a pile of garbage or a plastic bag floating in the air. If you see even a tiny plastic wrapper on the street, don’t hesitate to pick it up and toss it in the appropriate trash can. And while you’re at it, you can also (gently!) reprimand people you catch littering. Being a litterbug is never a good look on anyone!

Buy less, and buy wisely

How many times have you bought something you don’t really need, or only used once? We’ve all been guilty of this, and it’s a really hard habit to break. Starting today, carefully evaluating all your purchases. Before you head to the cashier, ask yourself if you really need the item you’re checking out. It also helps to buy from smaller local businesses, instead of from mass-market corporations—this reduces your carbon footprint while giving you access to handcrafted, unique items that aren’t owned by a lot of people.

Another way to be a better consumer is by supporting companies that give back to the environment. Nixplay is proud to support Trees For The Future, a non-profit organization that improves the lives of impoverished farmers by planting Forest Gardens, which have been proven to be more beneficial than conventional agriculture methods. Through our Seed For A Seed campaign, a tree seed gets planted in one of Trees For The Future’s Forest Gardens with every purchase of a Nixplay Seed Frame. To date, we have planted 209,643 trees—and with your help, we can plant thousands more.

Say no to plastic

We discard millions of tons of toxic plastic every year. These end up nearly everywhere, polluting our soil, our forests, our rivers, and our seas. In fact, there is are already at least two main trash dumps in our oceans: the Great Pacific garbage patch and the North Atlantic garbage patch, each spanning thousands of square kilometers.

While it might take a lifetime to rid our seas of the plastic soup, you can contribute in small ways. Start by being mindful of your plastic consumption—refuse disposable straws and utensils, avoid buying bottled water, and use a canvas bag when shopping so you don’t waste plastic bags. These actions might seem small, but when they’re done by thousands of people, they can add up and make an impact.

Walk (or bike) more often

Instead of driving to a restaurant located less than a mile away, why not take a leisurely stroll going there? It shouldn’t take more than 20 minutes, and this adds to your daily cardio count. You can also ride a bicycle to get around: It’s quick, free, and good for the body!

Don’t waste food

According to The Economist’s 2017 Food Sustainability Index, the average American wastes 277 kilograms of food annually. Meanwhile, hundreds of millions of people around the world are starving. Don’t add to the problem by mindlessly buying food. Before leaving the grocery, check expiration dates, finish what’s in your pantry before going to the grocery, and use your food waste to create compost pits.

Mars Salazar

Marianne is Nixplay’s Web Content Editor. Her hobbies include exploring new places, playing table tennis, and cuddling puppies. Send her a message at marianne.salazar@nixplay.com.

How To Live A More Sustainable Lifestyle

By Mars Salazar

On July 13, 2018

In From The Nixplay Team

Making the switch to a more eco-friendly lifestyle isn’t easy. It requires an intense passion for the environment, as it’s incredibly easy to forego sustainability for convenience.

It’s not just individual consumers who should be doing their part to save Mother Earth. Corporations should, more importantly, make sustainability a top priority. Nixplay recognizes the need to shift to more responsible practices, and is now taking the necessary measures to reach Zero Plastic Packaging status in the near future. The company is also exploring ways to incorporate post-consumer recycled resin into its product range, reducing the plastic waste that may end up in the ocean or in a landfill.

“Ultimately, our sustainability objective should be around how to make our products durable beyond the assumed product cycles as the plastics we make will most certainly outlive you and me,” says Lawrence Chu, Nixplay’s Principal Designer. “The best way to prevent plastic waste is not recyclability, but to ensure that we don’t produce products that aren’t useful and end up being discarded.”

In line with this goal, Nixplay invited on July 10 Fanny Moritz, the founder and CEO of eco-friendly lifestyle concept store NO!W No Waste, to share some easy things we can do in order to live a more sustainable life. Here are some things we learned from her:

1. Refuse things that can result in waste.

“You need to refuse the plastic bags that they give you in the grocery stores,” says Fanny. “Just bring in your own reusable bags, because I’m sure you already have some reusable bags at home.”

Same goes for plastic bottles. “Even if you really want to drink, just drink out of your own water bottle. Even if it’s a plastic bottle, it’s okay! Just refill it and don’t throw it away.”

You can also decrease clutter by unsubscribing from junk mail and by turning down freebies you really won’t use, like pens and fans.

Fanny Moritz discusses sustainability initiatives with the Nixplay family.

2. Reduce the things you buy.

Fanny swears by Marie Kondo’s bestselling book, The Life-Changing Magic Of Tidying Up. Kondo believes that everything you have at home needs to be loved by you, and this simple creed can drastically change your life.

“I’ve stopped buying new clothes. If I have to buy, I try to look for a secondhand option,” she shares.

Another way to reduce your carbon footprint is by assembling your own dining kit, consisting of metal cutlery, a cloth napkin, and reusable straws made of either metal or bamboo. This way, you don’t have to use disposable plastic utensils when you dine out.

3. Reuse the things you already have.

Fanny reuses glass jars and uses them as storage containers for her food, which she buys in bulk. “What is good about buying your food in bulk is that you don’t buy the packaging and the branding,” she shares.

Cotton balls and disposable feminine hygiene products might also be necessities for a lot of people, but they create a lot of waste and end up polluting the environment. In lieu of these, you can use reusable cleansing wipes and menstrual cups instead. Sure, you have to exert a little effort in order to sanitize them properly, but it’s a small price to pay in order to keep Mother Nature safe, right?

Some items you can use to live a more sustainable lifestyle: reusable straws, bamboo toothbrushes, and cleansing bars.

4. Recycle as much of your trash as you can.

Segregate your garbage and bring items like aluminum cans, glass bottles, and plastic containers to your neighborhood recycling center, where you can get some money out of them. You can also look for stores that invite customers to bring in their old items to use their sustainability initiatives.

“Nike does a very good job on this,” Fanny shares. “You can bring your own used shoes, and they’re going to use them to create a surface for a competition, for example.”

5. Rot (or compost) what you have in your kitchen.

A yard is usually a requirement for a compost pit—something a lot of people don’t have in the age of apartment living. If you don’t have the space needed for a compost pit, you can get an electronic composter, which can transform your food scraps into fertilizer. Living a zero-waste lifestyle has never been easier.

Want to start your own zero-waste journey? Visit NO!W No Waste to discover more plastic-free initiatives you can start on your way to living a truly sustainable life.

Mars Salazar

Marianne is Nixplay’s Web Content Editor. Her hobbies include exploring new places, playing table tennis, and cuddling puppies. Send her a message at marianne.salazar@nixplay.com.