COVID-19 hasn’t offered up too much good to write home about.

However, one silver lining has been the decrease in carbon emissions caused by strict travel restrictions and other stay-at-home orders that made a nation of commuters start to work from their couches.

It’s also meant that kids and teens are staying home, too, and here are 10 easy ways you and your family can further lessen your carbon footprint during (and after) the pandemic:

Eat Healthy

Eating healthy has innumerable positive effects on the mind and body, from reducing anxiety in teens to increasing focus in the elderly, but it also helps reduce your carbon footprint!

The processed meat industry is a leader in emissions, and the less we consume, the less they produce.

Plant a Garden

A great way to ensure your food is healthy is to grow it yourself!

This also is a great way to get outside during COVID, without breaking social distancing rules.

Planting some greens in your backyard helps the environment with carbon dioxide, and also helps things like insect life cycles stay regular.

If you have the means to plant some new trees, that’s icing on the green cake.

Reduce Energy Use

There are many ways to save energy, and each and every one helps reduce your carbon footprint in one way or another.

Simple things like keeping your doors shut, switching to LED bulbs, and minimizing use of wood burning appliances are great first steps.

You can also hire someone to do an energy audit on your property and really find out how to minimize use!

Buy Local

Buying local is not only good for the community, but it also helps the environment.

Local goods mean less transportation, which means less emissions.

From food to non-consumable goods like furniture, keeping it local is both a great move as a community member and carbon-savvy consumer.

Compost

Composting food waste is another twofold means of helping the environment. It keeps the waste in a small cycle, requiring less transportation, and it also makes for great fertilizer for your new garden!

At home composting is very easy, and can be set up quickly for less than $100 in most places, even urban locales.

Solar

This is a piggyback on reducing energy, but the solar boom is here and it’s not leaving any time soon.

Being able to replace fossil fuels with the sun’s energy is as great for the environment as it sounds on the surface.

Travel Smart

In 2020 it’s not difficult to find green initiatives in any and all industries, and travel is no exception.

Many hotels are going green, and traveling in hybrid vehicles to those green hotels allows all of the fun of a family road trip without the emissions shame.

Recycle

This doesn’t only mean tossing your plastic in a separate bin (if you can, DON’T use plastic!), but it also means recycling the things you don’t use anymore.

Especially in large cities, “Buy Nothing” groups are forming online communities to allow neighbors to share their old items that they would otherwise be throwing in the trash.

Less trash = less footprint, and fewer products being bought and sold means fewer being built.

Educate

This means yourself first, but should also trickle down to your family.

There are always ways to do better when it comes to your carbon footprint, and actively seeking out these ways and sharing them with friends and family can be wonderfully contagious.

Vote

The be all and end all when it comes to reducing your emissions starts at the voting booth.

Supporting candidates who want to combat climate change is the best way to get your message to a national platform!

About the author

Guest Contributor

This article was written by a Healthgist contributor. Please note, this content may include links to products or services for which we are compensated. Want to be a Healthgist contributor? Send your pitch to us at info@healthgist.com

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