April is Earth Month, which means it’s time to focus on how we can better care for our planet that provides us with so many amazing things—like food, air, water, and beauty. Unfortunately, many people don’t think about all the small choices we make every day that can create a harmful impact on the Earth, and many of these things also inadvertently hurt your wallet too. Living sustainably is surprisingly more inexpensive than the typical way people live. Check out my tips to trim your budget while saving the planet!
Ladies, Buy Reusable Pads and a Menstrual Cup
You can buy two menstrual cups on Amazon for around $15 or you can spend around 17 cents for a generic tampon at CVS. If you change your tampon every six hours on a six-day period that’s $2.04 per period and $24.48 a year. Women generally have periods for around 30 years so that’s a grand total of $734.40 spent. Generic pads at CVS also cost around 17 cents per pad. On Amazon, you can get a 7-piece reusable pad set for around $16, saving you over $700 in your lifetime.
Obviously, this number can change if you skip periods, but you can already see how much money you’d save switching to a menstrual cup or reusable pads. Not to mention close to 20 billion pads, tampons and applicators are put into landfills every year and because many contain plastic wrappers or pieces, they can take centuries to biodegrade. If you have any questions about reusable pads, I’ll be hosting an event about this topic on 4/16 at 6:30 pm in HWC 2500 as part of FSU’s Earth Month.
Go Vegetarian
Meat is expensive and very detrimental to our environment. The mass production of animal products are polluting our land, raising greenhouse gases, and giving us health issues. Studies show that following a plant based diets lead to lower rates of heart disease, lower blood pressure, and lower risk of cancer. But it that’s not enough to convince you, vegetarians save around $750 a year by not eating meat based on a study conducted on the MyPlate governmental eating plan.
Use Natural Lighting
During the day, open my windows to use natural lighting for studying and work. This practice, called Daylighting, can save consumers an impressive 32 percent on utility costs. What many don’t understand is that artificial light can affect the cycles of plants and animals in our environment because they live by the circadian rhythm, a 24-hr cycle dictated by the Sun. Not to mention that the way electricity is produced can cause negative effects on the environment, depending on how the electricity is produced.
In Florida, Natural Gas fuels 66 percent of our net electricity generation. Natural Gas is a fossil fuel and while it does produce less greenhouse gases than other fossil fuels, it still emits some causing air pollution and potential pollution of groundwater. If Florida were to switch to more renewable energy sources like Hydroelectric (I mean, we are a peninsula after all) and Solar (hello, the sunshine state) we could greatly offset these ill-effects. Currently only 2.2 percent of Florida’s electricity generation comes from renewable resources.
Make Your Own Cleaning Supplies
Have you ever thought about how many chemicals we flush into our earth through cleaning? All that bleach and chemical-filled water has to go somewhere and generally it goes into our water supply and the ground, poisoning plants and animals. Not to mention the detrimental effects that come from manufacturing the products and the plastic bottles they are made in. There are safer and cheaper alternatives to cleaning your house using simple ingredients like lemons, vinegar, borax and baking soda. You can use these ingredients to clean anything, from clothes, to the toilet to the sink. You will save money and save the planet. A simple google search will give you multiple websites with instructions and recipes that will keep you house clean in a cheap and environmentally friendly way.
Use regular plates and hand towels
Buy plates and cloth towels instead of paper towels and paper plates. Paper plates, plastic forks, and paper towels all contribute to pollution through their production and their eventual resting place in the landfill. Although it takes water to clean the reusable plates, it takes much more water to produce non-reusable plates. It takes 12 gallons of water to produce 22 10-inch medium plates, while it only takes about one gallon to clean a reusable plate.
Even with its manufacturing effects, it is still more environmentally friendly to buy reusable dishware and it saves you so much money in the long run. You can get cheap dishware at the dollar store and spend $10 once or spend $3 on a pack of 24 disposable plates. Paper towels cost about $10 for a twelve pack or you can spend around $2.50 for a towel that you can reuse for years.
Family Cloth
If you really want to go out on a limb, family cloth is for you. Have you ever thought about what happens to all the toilet paper people use? Currently our use of toilet paper uses 27,000 trees per DAY, which is about 9 million trees every year. It takes about 37 gallons of water to produce each roll. We could all install bidets or you could get creative like some frugal internet blogs suggest and go with family cloth. The idea is that you take an old cotton t-shirt and cut it into squares that you then use when you go to the bathroom. You can rinse immediately after use and wash it, similar to reusable diapers. Some use family cloth at varying degrees like only using it for urine while others use it for everything. That’s up to you.
Overall, we need to be more aware of where things go once we are through with them. From tampons to toilet paper, the products we consume do not just disappear when we throw them away. They usually end up in landfills where they can take years to biodegrade. It’s important to be conscious of just how many resources you use and how expensive the convenience of these products can cost. You can save so much money and the environment with some small adjustments that you will barely notice.