With countries around the world experiencing their longest and hottest summers for some years, it’s more important than ever we consider our carbon footprints and the waste we produce that could contribute to global warming. While recycling has been encouraged for some time, there are other ways you could live a self-sufficient life with you and your family and have a kinder effect on the planet. Here we’ve put together some fun and interesting ways you can incorporate self-sufficiency into your daily activities.
Home Harvested Breakfast
Kitchen windowsill herb gardens and spice plants are a fond favourite but there is plenty more you can grow easily at home. Set up a home allotment plot and grow favourite dinner accompaniments such as tomatoes, carrots, cucumbers, you can even plant some sweet delights including strawberries and even pineapple! If you plan your garden right, you can continue to grow all year round providing you healthy variation to keep your palette happy.
A meal of just vegetables likely isn’t going to take your fancy but no one can turn down the freshest of eggs and keeping chickens is a great way to bring a pet into your life that offers a daily reward. Chickens like any pet can bring you lots of joy and can be quite affectionate, responding to your voice and following you around the garden.
Turn Your Waste into Plant Food
You may have heard of a composting toilet used in caravans, but could you bring one into your home? There are plenty of composting toilets available on the market and the new designs handle your waste without worry about nasty odours, not to mention the fantastic effect they have on your water bill. Considering the huge amounts of water used every day by toilets around the country, a composting toilet is a brilliant way to live a greener lifestyle.
Harness the Energy of the Sun
Electricity bills can be a huge outgoing every month with the amount of connected smart gadgets that are ever increasing. Consider installing solar panels on your home, modern day designs can still generate on overcast days, so you don’t need to worry about lack of sun in the winter months. Solar panels can drastically lower your electric bills and in some areas even produce enough energy to provide you free electricity (once your panels are paid off).
Live in an Eco-home
The term eco-home can be applied to many types of dwellings that are either self-sufficient in nature or eco-friendly in their build. An earthship would be an extreme example of an eco-home, completely built out of recycled materials including bottles and vehicle tyres and using natural materials like earth and clay. Could you build your own earthship?
A less extreme example would be a park home, built to strict energy efficient standards and often manufactured from sustainably-sourced resources and materials. Find more information on how a park home could save you money in the long-term and look at park homes for sale here. Park homes can be bought and installed on private land but are most common in residential parks where residents feel a greater sense of community and are close to necessary amenities and facilities like entertainment and sports. Perfect for starting a growing community or even keeping chickens together! Greener community living is a great way to accompany your eco-friendly park home.
Are you a self-sufficient home-owner or do you struggle to keep up with the recycling? Consider living a greener life today so your children may follow these traditions and help improve life on our planet for all people and species, the globe over. We only have one planet, so it’s important we take care of it and there is a special sense of accomplishment that is felt from living a self-sustaining lifestyle where you grow, harvest and recycle as much as you can.
