How to Live More Sustainably in a City

Image/ElisaRiva

It is all too easy to be unaware of our own carbon footprint, particularly when living in a busy, bustling city. However there are many simple ways that we can look at our every lifestyle and make practical steps in being more responsible and resourceful in reducing our carbon footprint and living in a more environmentally friendly way.

Think Electric

There is no ignoring the benefits of going electric when we look at the ways we get from A to B in our city lives. Looking at investing in an electrical scooter, electric car or an electric motorbike is one of the top ways that we can reduce the amount of carbon emissions we produce on a day to basis.

Although the initial investment in electrical modes of transport can be a little more costly at the beginning, they can really pay off in the long term as there will be no need for continually filling up tanks with expensive and damaging fuels. Not only are electric bikes, scooters and cars completely fuel free, they help to reduce noise pollution due to their very silent motors, and they are also much easier and cheaper to charge and maintain.

Grow Plants

Plants help to soak up the Co2 emissions that fill our cities, as they work to purify the air. Therefore growing plants in and around your house will mean you are doing your bit to try and keep the air in your life just that little bit cleaner.

Growing your own vegetable garden is also a great idea in feeding your family organic fruit and vegetables and will also help lower the demand for produce that is being shipped from all over the world.

Be Responsible with Water

Making sure that we are being responsible with water is also a good way to make sure that we are not zapping the resources available to us in our day to day lives. Taking shorter showers and reducing our baths from a daily routine to a less regular treat, will help lower the huge amount of power that is required to pump the water from rivers, lakes and reservoirs into our city homes.

Be Local Wherever Possible

Be mindful of local produce when shopping for your weekly groceries. It can be astounding, looking on the fresh produce labels in our supermarkets, seeing how far the simplest products have travelled to make it onto our shelves. Purchasing potatoes that have travelled thousands of miles, rather than ones that have been grown a mere few miles away means we are contributing to the huge carbon footprint that international fruit and vegetables transportation requires.

Staying local also relates to the things that we can find to do with our friends and family in the local area rather than just automatically flying or travelling somewhere much further afield to do something different. Obviously we live in a time where travel is so accessible to us and we understand the great pleasure involved with seeing different parts of the world. However looking at interesting things that we can be doing in our local communities rather than automatically traveling further afield, can significantly reduce the amount of emissions involved in frequent traveling.