If you’re thinking about decluttering your home, you should also be thinking about how that process can affect the environment. Developing responsible methods for tidying up and cleaning your home can be simple; plus, they can help save the planet. So, here are a few easy ways you can declutter your home without damaging the environment.
Be Prepared to Keep Things Green, Non-Toxic, and Tidy
Before you really get into your decluttering spree, you need to make sure you have all the right cleaning tools to keep your home tidy. Since this process is all about clearing things out, take this opportunity to banish wasteful cleaning supplies. Instead of sticking with a plastic floor sweeper, think about investing in an excellent cordless vacuum. A quality cordless vacuum cleaner can be just as easy to use as the more popular sweepers, but you won’t have to worry about harming the environment with all of those disposable cloths. You also don’t have to worry about little ones tripping over cords.
However, don’t stop at your vacuum when it comes to choosing sustainable cleaning supplies. Traditional sponges and scrub brushes also tend to be bad news for the environment since they contain so much plastic. That plastic usually ends up in landfills or waterways once they’re discarded, but you can find easy sponge alternatives to keep your house spotless. To complement your sustainable cleaning supplies, swap out harmful cleaners for natural DIY ones.
Keep More Plastics Out of Your Home, and Out of Landfills
Making your own cleaners is a simple way to reduce your plastic use, but there are more impactful steps you can take as well. You may be surprised at the other ways plastics pose threats to your health and the health of the environment. The plastic storage bags and containers so many people use for their food actually end up leaching harmful toxins into the very food they are trying to preserve. But when the same containers get tossed into the garbage, they release the same toxins into the environment. They also never decompose.
As you organize your home, try to find more sustainable methods to gather smaller items. Use reusable food wraps instead of disposable storage bags in your pantry. If you have larger appliances or furniture that needs to be tossed out, you should be cautious of the plastics in those items as well. Prevent those plastics from cluttering the environment by choosing responsible recycling.
Stop Putting Up With All of That Paper Clutter
If you replace your cleaners with greener products and curb your plastic addiction, your decluttering efforts will be much more sustainable. But there’s another common clutter culprit that can cause issues for our planet: paper. Look around your home and you are likely to find old photos, junk mail, and paper documents that you are not sure how to handle. For your photos and important papers, a more eco-friendly storage solution is to scan them into the cloud. Be sure to choose a cloud storage provider that is working to produce the smallest carbon footprint, which will help you make the most of your switch.
When you’ve successfully tamed your printed photo collection, avoid putting them into the recycling bin. Reusing printed photos is your only eco-friendly option for disposing of them, so put them into albums or give them to loved ones. Afterward, commit to printing fewer photos in the future. Putting a stop to junk mail should be your next decluttering step, so hop online and opt out of all those useless ads and offers.
It’s possible to show love to your home while showing love to the environment — you just need to choose sustainable cleaning and decluttering methods. It’s such an easy step that can have such a positive impact on all of the ecosystems that make up our priceless planet.
