This Earth Day, sit back, relax AND save the environment. Here are ten ways to not do anything and be green.
- Stay home in your PJs: How many days can you work from home? Each day you don’t drive is less pollution. A gallon of gas burned by a car produces 20 pounds of carbon dioxide, which is a major environmental pollutant. Check out more about car emissions and how they contribute to climate change (Or don’t if you’re too tired. Just trust me on it.)
- Buy groceries in bulk: Again, that pesky car. Buying in bulk means fewer trips to the grocery store, which means more time hanging out on the couch, saving the world again. Here are some tips on how it saves you money too.
- Repurpose leftovers: Instead of eating out (car driving) or cooking a new meal, make a soup or frittata with your leftovers, and you knew that french toast is best with stale bread, right? Food waste is the single biggest part of landfills. Gross. Go easy on yourself for dinner.
- Don’t wash your clothes so much: Instead of dumping them in the hamper out of habit, dump them back into the dresser (or fold them if you are neat). Unless they are visibly dirty or smell, there is no scientific reason to wash outside layer clothes or towels on a daily basis, in fact, it wears out your clothes which contributes to waste and having to buy more stuff, and the less laundry you need to wash is less power, water, and heat used. Instead of doing laundry, smile and pat yourself on the back for being so environmentally gifted.
- Drive slower: Ok, so you need to drive sometime. Take it easy. Around town we tend to speed up, just to brake at stoplights, and on the highway going over 55mph tanks fuel efficiency. Listen to your favorite tunes, slow down, and be an efficient driver. Your gas money will thank you too. If you’re late to an event, blame me.
- Have a StayCation: You’ve heard of this: Stay At Home Vacation. Airplane flights are the biggest factor in personal pollution, add a whole family and you’ve just ruined your perfect A+ carbon footprint. Stay home, save money, airplane fuel, annoyances at the airport, and enjoy those local spots you always wanted to see anyway.
- Don’t mow all of your lawn: Unless you use a push mower or electric, gas mowers account for 5% of the total pollution in the US. That may not seem like a big number, but everything counts. Gas mowers are not regulated like cars so they put out a stupid amount of pollution in your neighborhood which can affect asthma and allergy sufferers. Plus, noise pollution will go down which is my personal pet peeve. Leaving a section of your lawn to grow wild ensures that our pollinators (bees) have a place to live and thrive and keep our food supply safe. Here’s a great infographic about the history of lawns and why you don’t really need one. And you know not to water your lawn, right? Right?
- Don’t rake all of your leaves in the fall and be lazy in the spring: Speaking of bees, they nest over winter in piles of leaves along with other pollinators and fireflies. They need to stay in those piles until the weather consistently is above 50 degrees F. If you enjoy having food, then we need to do all we can to save the pollinators. If you like flashing summer lights, then don’t kill the fireflies. So keep the piles under your bushes or in a corner. Don’t be so freakin’ neat with your lawn. Practice laziness and the earth will thank you.
- Give gifts of time not stuff: Hang out and be lazy with other people as a gift. Go out for tea with your mom, invite a friend over for a movie night, have a games day with your kids. The less “stuff” you buy, the better for the planet, and one less shopping trip.
- Go outside: You don’t have to do anything. Just put down the phone, be outside, and feel the wind on your face every day (even if it’s cold). Take a few deep breaths. Look up. See any shapes in the clouds? Look down. Any cool critters running around? Listen to the birds. Try to whistle back. Laugh at yourself. Talk to a tree (they make great listeners). Appreciating the earth is the best way to care about it.
- Kick your kids outside: They need it to be psychologically happy anyway and then they will care about the earth along with you. This is the easiest way to make a positive impact on your children and the world they will inherit.
- Talk about climate change: Talking the talk is walking the walk, or something like that. Bring it up in conversation when being lazy with your peeps. Making our environment an important topic keeps our minds on it and encourages everyone to get involved. Be positive. Our earth is resilient and we can make a difference.
“Climate change is an opportunity for economic development — an entire energy system has to be redesigned from the wastefulness of the previous century to a much smarter mode of doing things. It’s a great opportunity to improve global collaboration and knowledge sharing and to create a more just society. So climate change is a fantastic opportunity to encourage our global humanity to emerge. We need to be talking about this.” Per Espen Stoknes What We Think About When We Try Not To Think About Global Warming
So now that you have fully embraced the lazy-ass environmental way, we can all look forward to a better planet. Thanks…for not doing anything.
