By Aaron Swartz

It seems like these days, everyone’s trying to go green. From reusable straws to eco-friendly shower curtains, the market for green home goods just keeps expanding, and a lot of college students are looking to get in on it. We’ve been raised hearing about climate change, and most of us are keen to implement eco-friendly strategies into our lives. If you’re looking to up your environmental friendliness game, here are our top seven tips to make your apartment — and your lifestyle — healthier for the planet.

 

1. Reduce, Reuse, and…

We all know it at this point, but recycling is really one of the best things you can do for the environment. When throwing away your trash pull out any recyclable paper, plastic, and metal and make sure they get in the recycling bin. Depending on your living situation you may have separate recycling cans you pull to the curb or dumpsters which take recyclables. If you don’t know, make sure you investigate how best to do this quick and easy task for being more eco-friendly.

2. Compost Your Waste

Recycling takes care of more traditional waste products, but it does nothing for your food waste. Luckily, there’s another great eco-friendly option available to you: composting. There are plenty of great options for at-home composting containers, even ones that can fit right on your countertop! When food waste is thrown away in a landfill it doesn’t break down properly, so composting is a much more environmentally friendly method of waste removal. Things like vegetable peelings, coffee grounds, and banana skins can all be composted and will go towards making some great fertilizer. Once you have your compost there’s a lot you can do with it. You can fertilize potted plants with it or create a small window garden, you can donate it to your local community garden or any farms in the area, or you can sell or give it away on sites like Craigslist.

3. Buy Some Houseplants

Cottagecore is all the rage these days, so why not get in on the action in a way that benefits the environment? Houseplants are really great for a number of reasons. They brighten up your living space and make it feel more like home, but they also naturally purify the air and have been tied to increases in both physical and mental health. Snake plants and peace lilies both score incredibly high on their ability to clean up air pollution which makes them great options. You can also get a small countertop herb garden and have all-natural, homegrown herbs to use in your cooking. What beats that?

4. Swap to LEDs

You can’t walk into a college dorm these days without seeing LED strips on at least some of the walls. Interestingly enough, though, LEDs are actually a much more environmentally friendly form of lighting than more traditional fluorescent or halogen bulbs. LED light bulbs are more energy efficient than the bulbs your apartment likely came fitted with. Swapping them out can be a little pricey, but the long lifespan of LEDs means you can just swap the bulbs out when you move and take them with you. It’s a quick and easy way to make your apartment just a little bit more environmentally friendly.

5. Wash Clothes In Cold Water

Laundry is a part of life and one that uses up a lot of water. Washing your clothes is one of the highest water and energy-consuming activities you’ll do as a regular part of your life, so making it more efficient is a great way to make your home more eco-friendly. Washing your clothes in cold water is a great way to reduce your environmental impact and energy consumption, which will save you money and make the world a better place. Win-win!

6. Insulate Your Space

If you’ve ever had to pay for utilities, you know that heating your space costs an arm and a leg. Not only that, but the amount of energy expended to keep your apartment at a comfortable temperature is incredibly high, which means insulating your space is a great way to make your apartment more eco-friendly. If you live in a colder area then you can heat seal your windows, put draft stoppers on doors that aren’t flush with the ground, and hang curtains to help keep the heat in. All of these will help reduce your energy consumption and lower your overall environmental impact, making your living space better for the planet.

7. Ditch Single-Use Items

Metal straws aren’t the only way to save the environment; in the last few years, there’s been a huge push towards sustainable, reusable alternatives to single-use plastics and products. From metal straws to reusable shopping bags to metal water bottles, environmentally friendly alternatives for a vast number of single-use items have cropped up all over the place. The next time you grab a plastic fork or crush an empty Solo cup, think about what other options you have that may be better for the environment.

Climate change is an ever-present part of our lives. With these tips, you’re ready to go about making your apartment a much more environmentally friendly space and help save the world, one day at a time.