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Dealing with the waste we create is one of the biggest environmental concerns of the 21st century. While recycling rates around the world are increasing, so too is the population, and far more needs to be done to tackle the problem.

As reported in this guide to waste and landfills, 2.12 billion tonnes of waste is produced across the globe every single year. So, what practical steps can we all take to reduce the amount of waste that we produce? Here, we'll take a look at three areas where small changes can make a huge difference.


Cook in bulk

Food waste is a common domestic issue, but there are lots of ways we can reduce the amount we’re throwing away. Firstly, by making larger quantities of food that uses up all of your fresh ingredients and then freezing it, you reduce the amount of waste you generate. You also have meals on hand whenever you need them, saving precious time.  

You should also make a conscious effort to prepare your own meals rather than buying ready meals. Not only does this mean you’ll be reducing food and plastic waste, but you're also lowering your bills. Any uncooked fruit or vegetables that you don't use should be composted if possible.


Avoid single-use plastics

Limiting our reliance on single-use plastics is key to a better planet. As such, it’s important to be aware of any alternatives available to help stamp down on plastic waste. Always take reusable bags when shopping, use paper or mesh bags when purchasing fruit and vegetables, and use a refillable water bottle.

Refill shops which allow you to purchase key ingredients such as flour, pasta and other products without the packaging are spreading across the country. These make it easy to radically reduce the amount of packaging you use.


Borrow, repair, rent or share

Households consume vast quantities of consumer goods, clothes and appliances. Many of these cannot be recycled or repurposed after they've been used as they’re often made up of many different materials. By borrowing the household goods and appliances you need rather than buying them, you can reduce the amount of the material that ends up in landfills.

So-called 'libraries of things' are growing in popularity across the globe. These allow people to borrow household items, such as sewing machines, steam cleaners, hedge trimmers and garden furniture for a set period. There is usually a small membership fee and a daily charge, but the costs are considerably less than owning items that you might only use a handful of times yourself. Alternatively, you might be able to set up an informal sharing arrangement with your neighbors.


To sum up

As we’ve seen, by taking slightly more care and consideration around our lifestyle choices, we can make big strides towards drastically reducing our reliance on landfills. By being more mindful of the waste we generate and by taking these simple steps in different areas, we can each play our part in creating a greener future for generations to come.

​Choosing to live the frugal life also means adhering to certain lifestyle changes. These changes were discussed in a previous post here on The Frugal Lifestyle, and they all involve cutting costs on aspects like transport, food, and home maintenance. Aside from those mentioned, being resourceful is also a vital part of frugal living. If you are creative enough to think of ways to repurpose old or unusable household items into things that you can use, you have the potential to save even more money. Even those who aren’t particular crafty can learn with a little patience and inspiration. So with that in mind, here are some great recycling ideas to get you started.
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Turn Wine Bottles into Garden Lights

​It’s natural for households to spend on decorations, drinks, food, and other celebratory items during the holidays. Fortunately, you can find other purposes for these things after they’ve been used up, long after the holiday season has passed. Lifehacker shared a mood lighting project that involves old wine bottles and Christmas lights. Basic tools are needed, as you will need to drill a hole in the side of the bottle in order to insert a strand of Christmas lights. This lamp can be used for indoor mood lighting or as a porch light throughout the year.
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Transform a Table Using Old CDs

There is no need to throw away old CDs when you can use them to transform an old piece of furniture. Using a strong pair of scissors, simply break the CDs into small pieces so that can be arranged into a mosaic. You can then glue these pieces onto an old table to give it a new look. After decorating his garden table with pieces of old CDs, a user called Emzul shared the finished product on Imgur. The CD-studded table looked like a brand new piece of furniture. You can take inspiration from projects like this to reduce the desire to buy new furniture and find new ways to liven up old ones that are still usable. 
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Repurpose an Old Suitcase as a Cabinet

Unused suitcases can take up a lot of space to store. The natural thing to do would be to throw them out or sell them. But there is also the option to repurpose them as cabinets. Now, such a project may need advanced crafting skills, so do ask for help from experienced DIY-ers if possible. In Mel Lockcuff’s suitcase medicine cabinet tutorial, she used boards, screws, L brackets, and drywall anchors. These are used to make the shelves and to keep the cabinet in place. The finished product will add a vintage flair to whichever room you hang it in. 
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Make Desk Organizers with Toilet Roll Tubes

Your home office can become a chaotic mess if you don’t have proper organizers for your supplies. Luckily, you can fashion a desk organizer out of one of the most discarded household items: the toilet roll tube. Foxy Bingo’s guide to random uses for household items details how you can use toilet roll tubes to store cables. To make the tubes more attractive, you can decorate them with washi tape or paint them in the color of your choice. Aside from cables, you can also store pens, paper clips, and other crafts supplies. 
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Fashion a Reusable Bag Out of Old Shirts

Supermarkets may provide reusable shopping bags, but they don’t usually come for free. Instead of buying one, you can do the environment an even better favor by recycling old clothes. There are many ways to create a t-shirt bag, as clearly stated on Things We’ll Make’s post on ‘8 Ways to Make a Bag From a Shirt’. You can either do a bit of sewing or go the no-sew, fringed shirt bag route. It's also worth noting that reusable shopping bags sold by stores often use materials that are not easily washable. People almost never wash these bags as a result, thereby increasing the risk of product contamination. T-shirt bags, however, can be easily thrown into the laundry to clean. 
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In honor of Earth Day, l've always believed that... "the great benefit of being frugal is that it eliminates waste and clutter which in turn helps our environment.  By doing simple changes towards more “green” and frugal ways, together we can make an impact on our planet." This is one of the reasons why I started this website and blog - to share what I've learned along the way to be a little more "green" :) 

​Here are some of my favorite ways to "go green" with very little effort. Happy Earth Day everyone!

RECYCLE
This does not need to be complicated. I simply have a containers (or boxes) in the kitchen to hold bottles, cans, glass, newspapers, cardboard, magazines, paper, etc. We go an extra step by taking them to our local recycling center, where we money back or as I like to think of it - get paid to recycle. If you are too busy to do that, you can place all recycle items in a designated bin for your city or town to pick up on trash day.

RECEIVE AND PAY BILLS ONLINE
Choose to go "paperless" when it comes to your monthly bills. Did you know that it is estimated that almost 20 million trees could be saved yearly if Americans paid their bills online! Not only are you saving trees, but saving on the cost of stamps as well as eliminating paper clutter at home by opting to receive e-statements vs. by mail. It's a win, win, win!

TAKE SHORTER SHOWERS
I live in Southern California, since we are impacted by the drought, we have cut our shower time by 2 minutes, by doing this we can conserve more than ten gallons of water.

BROWN IS THE NEW GREEN
Again, because Southern California is experiencing a drought, we have decided to cut back of watering our grass. Most cities have very limited days and times they can water their lawn. I have come up with a way to water our brown grass with water "collected" in a bin in the sink from the water used when I wash and rinse the dishes. 

DRINK WATER OUT OF A PITCHER
Close to 90 percent of plastic water bottles are not recycled. Reduce or eliminate drinking from water bottles, instead try drinking from a pitcher with a filter. You can conserve up to five gallons a day!

UNPLUG
Disconnect block type chargers such as phone, computer, small appliance, and toy chargers, from the wall when not in use. If the charger is plugged into the wall it is still on and consuming energy even if you aren’t charging.

TURN IT OFF
Turn off lights in unoccupied rooms and kitchen and bathroom ventilating fans after they’ve done their job. If left on, ventilating fans can blow a house full of heated or cooled air out quickly. 

CHANGE THE LIGHT BULBS
Swap out your old light bulbs with compact fluorescent bulbs (CFL). They consume about 75 percent less electricity and last up to 10 times longer.  By replacing one 75-watt incandescent bulb with a 25-watt CFL can save you up to $83 over the life of the bulb.