Although I have been living a green, sustainable lifestyle for a while now taking the environment and my impact on it into consideration in whatever I do, I realized that I have never defined concrete principles of green living. So I thought it was time to do so, to help others better understand green lifestyle and to make it easier for you to start taking steps towards actually implementing green practices in your everyday life.

1. The main principle that I base my green lifestyle on is to be considered of the environment and leave as little of a footprint and damage to it as possible. Often when we do everyday things like buy food or go to work we don’t think about how each of these actions affect the environment around us. For example how much of the food you buy is packaged in plastic that will take forever to biodegrade if not properly recycled or how much greenhouse gasses your old car gives out especially if you drive to work alone each day. So if you want to start living a greener life make changes to your everyday routine so that you make little to no impact to the environment.

2. Another important principle for green living is also sustainability. That means that you should try turn everything harmful to the environment into something positive and beneficial to it. A great example here is composting. We often find ourselves throwing out spoiled food and things like potato skins and banana peels. But if you would compost them instead of just throwing them out with the rest of your trash it would turn them into compost (after the green materials had biodegraded) that you can use as additional nutrition in your garden to grow new food. The same goes for aluminum recycling because if you bring your used aluminum to a recycling plant instead of just throw it out then that aluminum will be melted down and turned into new aluminum cans this way not harming the environment with aluminum waste and using little resources to use the aluminum again.

3. Then of course there is the principle of using as little of un-renewable resources as possible. Although this principle usually requires some money if you want to do it fully, it can also be done with small expenses. By using as little of these resources that cannot be renewed I mean to for example limit the amount of fuel you use in you daily commute by buying an electrical car or even just by commuting to work with another co-worker and to use as little of electricity generated by un-renewable resources as possible by investing in a few solar panels or just unplugging all of your devices when you stop using them. Like you can see there is the expensive and the cheaper alternative to this principle and even if you chose the cheaper one you will still be doing a good deed for the environment.

4. For those who want to fully be involved into green and eco-friendly lifestyle, you should also think about protecting the nature and wildlife around you.No that automatically doesn’t mean that you need to protest against cutting down trees or building of the new office building. You will still be protecting your surroundings by buying food from local farmers that are conscious of the wildlife and the land that they use as well as educating yourself about the wildlife and plant life around you so you don’t accidentally destroy any rare species when taking a stroll in the woods. For more active involvement you can also participate in annual environment cleanup events or volunteer in a nature reserve close to you which will let you see immediate results in environmental protection.

5. And the last principle that somewhat is similar to the third one is to overall use all resources sparingly. Even things like water that for most of us is easily accessible actually is a resource that is slowly running out because with now fresh water that we actually can use as drinking water makes up only 2% of all water on the planet. So be conscious of not only your surroundings but also of your actions and think how they influence your life, the life for those around you and environment you live in.