Change one thing right now

We can put the brakes on climate change but we all need to start now.

Pick one thing from the following and make that change now. Just one thing.

Then you’ll realise how easy that was—and one thing will become two things.

No to plastic!

Fruit and vegetables come packaged naturally—don’t bother bagging them! Take them to be weighed and insist they put the sticker directly onto the produce; 429,000 recyclable plastic supermarket bags get dumped into landfill every hour, your banana bag does not need to join them. You should be washing your produce when you get home anyway, so why worry about them getting a little dirty between here and home? And when you get to the till, don’t use plastic carrier bags! Bring your own bags, put your groceries straight into your backpack, or do the juggle-walk home if you forgot a bag.

Buy in season

No, you can’t have strawberries in winter. You can’t have everything all the time. Out of season produce needs flying halfway around the world to meet demand so just don’t contribute to that carbon footprint. Head to a local market or research seasonal ingredients in your area and support your local community.

Eat less meat

Okay, meat production isn’t as bad for the environment as we thought, but quitting meat once a week or even altogether does make a difference. It’s certainly a baby step in the right direction.

Reusable FTW

Stop getting coffee in a takeaway cup. The UK throws away 2.5 billion cups a year. Bring your own or don’t get it at all. Simple.

Fill your own water bottle at home and wherever you can outside. Otherwise, by buying bottled water, you’re paying for the 60,000 tons of greenhouse gases a year it takes to pump water out of the ground, package it, transport it, and then chill it, just because you were too lazy to refill your water bottle.

No more disposable cutlery. Single use plastics are the bane of the oceans, with some 100 billion disposable pieces of cutlery thrown out every year. Ditch the straws, plastic cups, and plastic cutlery.

Use your dishwasher

Hooray! Less work for you and a more eco-friendly approach to a distasteful chore. Washing up by hand with hot water and lots of rinsing leaves a bigger carbon footprint than a dishwasher on an eco or energy efficient setting. Just make sure it’s only ever run when it’s full.

Shorter showers

Sorry, but showers longer than a few minutes are unnecessary wastes of water and energy. Cut them down—the recommended time is under four minutes. If that seems an impossible task to shampoo, condition, body scrub, soap up, shave and ponder your existence, use a timer and try it—maybe you don’t need that many products or could switch off the water in between steps? Remember, a ten minute shower wastes around 75-190 litres of water on average, and don’t get us started on baths.

Stop wasting paper

You don’t need to print that. Millions of tons of office paper is thrown away every year—not recycled, thrown away. If you must print, ensure you only print what you need and print double-sided. If your office doesn’t use recycled paper, insist.

Turn it off.

Leaving your computer on standby or the lights on in any room is a huge waste of energy. Sleep mode isn’t good enough and you’re just being lazy. If you’re going to be away from your computer for more than 20 minutes, turn off the screen; if you’re leaving it for more than two hours, just switch it off altogether.

Start somewhere, but just start. ■

Sustainability

Back to the start