5 Qualities of a conscious household

We make decisions that impact the world around us every single day, whether it be choosing public transport over the car or organic produce instead of well marketed products made in “food factories”. If we are able to look beyond the merchandise and empty talk, then we have just taken the first vital step towards a conscious lifestyle.

Conscious consumption means synchronizing our daily choices with our own ideologies. If one puts saving the environment in the foreground, then he/she is looking for those products and services, which minimize the use of natural resources and the omission of pollutants without a threat to the resources for the next generations. Values change from person to person, therefore the emphasis should rather be on how we can transform daily choices from the unconscious to conscious actions. When we start measuring our choices on the basis of our values, we start living a more free and complete life.

As everything is interconnected, daily choices impact the future of the Earth. Many people think they have to install a complete solar power plant or sit in a high priced electric car, but research shows that we can do more for our planet and for the generations to come, if we take the first conscious steps inside our own home.

The following 5 principles can help make your household more conscious and environmentally friendly:

1. BE A SMART SHOPPER!

Shopping provides a great opportunity to make your life sustainable. Standing at the counter, you decide which product to put into your cart. Choose consciously and healthily products that aren’t contaminated with chemical additives, are seasonal, have the Fair Trade label on them or were transported only from a short distance away. It’s worth buying organic clothes or ones made out of recycled material, but if you can’t afford this, you’re likely to find suitable clothing in thrift stores. Before a purchase it’s good to think it over, how much animals had a role in creating a certain product.

If you’re buying meat, remember that the circumstances in which an animal was kept, show the quality of the produce. Animals living in unbearable conditions become sensitive and prone to illness, thereby having an effect on the human health too.

Don’t believe the sugarcoated world of advertising, but turn the product around, read the label and verify the credibility of it yourself. If you know what additives and ingredients you should avoid, you can decrease the enourmous, “must-buy” selection in supermarkets to an amount that, you can handle.

2. CHOOSE ENERGY EFFICIENCY!

Your daily energy use changes as new appliances, transforming our lives, appear on a daily basis. With the use of electronic devices, you can not only improve your own living conditions, but the air quality in cities, which is mostly formed by its inhabitants. For instance, when you’re not at home, you can lower the heating, or turn off the lights, when you’re not in the room.

3. CLEAN WITH A GREEN EYE!

“Modern” cleaning practices are polluting, consume a lot of energy and aren’t healthy for the people living in your household. If you use environmentally friendly, biodegradable, plant-based or phosphate-free cleaning products, you take a positive step towards creating a conscious home. Conscious cleaning will have a wonderful effect on other areas of your life too, since it’s transparent and your previously used equipment can be replaced.

4. YOU SHOULD BE WATER-PARTING TOO!

The presence of water is necessary for every living being, but if extraterrestrials would visit the Earth, they would probably think otherwise. People wash up under running water, spend long minutes in the shower and water the garden lawn for hours in order for it to stay in perfect condition. Most people know that 70% of our Earth is covered by water, but they don’t know, that only a small fraction of this water is actually drinkable. As wastefulness continues and the population rapidly grows, so does water become an immeasurable treasure.

While the average american wastes about 400 liters of water daily, the more conscious europeans only use up half of it. The daily water use of a person in Mozambique is 7 liters, which is the amount a toilet uses for flushing. Currently about 1,2 billion people have no access to daily drinking water, not to mention the numerous species that have to cover much ground every year to arrive to a drinking place.

5. MAINTAIN A GARDEN – EVEN IN YOUR APARTMENT!

As a successful organic gardener, you can combine healthy greens with decorative ornamental plants in your garden. You can supervise and enhance soil fertility in accordance with nature after just a bit of exploring. Scheduling planting can be done according to the plants’ needs and the season itself. As an organic gardener you’ll notice what kind of an effect your garden, a tiny bit of nature, can have on life outside of the fence, as each of your actions impacts the world around you.