I don’t know about you, but when I first became conscious of making ‘eco-friendly’ decisions, I found it intimidating. The term gets thrown around a lot, and sometimes there isn’t much by way of defining what ‘eco-friendly’ means, much less how to put it into practice!
At the beginning of this journey of being environmentally conscious, I imagined my life would involve making my own clothes, riding a bike everywhere (I’m really bad at bike riding, so this was scary), and growing all my own food. While these practices can be really good ways of being friendlier to the environment, they’re not always realistic for everybody. But that doesn’t mean that there is a barrier to making environmentally friendlier decisions …there are lots of ways to do your part!
So, let’s get stuck into it. Below I will share with you what I’ve learned about this topic and how to apply it, as I have come to understand it, being the time-poor, urban dweller type that I am 😊.
‘Eco-friendly’: A Definition
The Cambridge Dictionary defines ‘eco-friendly products’ as those that “have been designed to do the least possible damage to the environment.”
The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines ‘eco-friendly’ as “not environmentally harmful”, and “not harmful to the environment: not having a bad effect on the natural world.”
Unfortunately, most of the products that we use affect the environment at some stage of their life cycle, whether it’s in how they’re made, how they’re used, or how they’re disposed. So, what can we do, to at least minimise our impact on the earth? Well, for one thing, we shouldn’t feel discouraged. Read on!
Assess your lifestyle
There is often an alternative to any of our current choices in our everyday life. In the context of our life with our dogs, we can think of their routine (and we know dogs LOVE their routines!). For example:
- We take our dog for a walk in the morning: Perhaps we could ditch those plastic bags in favour of compostable dog poop bags!
- Our doggie has a yummy breakfast: What sort of packaging does the food come in? Maybe you can check with your local council about how to dispose of the packaging responsibly.
- We give our dog a toy to play with: What type of toy would be suitable for your dog, and which would last longer, depending on your dog’s play style?
- And so on!
Do what you can! Every small change counts.
Making a difference can be achieved by making a series of small, thoughtful changes where they are needed. Assessing your lifestyle with your pup can be a good start – our dogs are part of our family after all, so they definitely can be included in this journey of caring for our planet!
What new environmentally thoughtful habits can you pick up today? 😊
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Leaf and Leash was born out of a desire to make better choices in our lifestyle with our dogs. Each and every material used in our products have been thoughtfully chosen in regards to their lesser impact on the environment in some way, in either the way it was produced, or how it can be recycled or reused. We believe that the action of making many small choices to choose lower-impact products add up to big gains for our planet in the long-term. Our FAQ’s page gives you a nice summary of the benefits of the materials used in our products!
Leaf and Leash blog posts are the opinions of the author only.