Sustainability for Individuals
Calculate your Ecological Footprint before becoming more sustainable. This will allow the business to determine what parts would benefit you from becoming more sustainable.
BATHROOM
- Switch to eco-friendly beauty and personal hygiene products. Once you have finished with the previous product, find and switch to a more sustainable and eco-friendly beauty and personal hygiene product.
- Swap out plastic products - once you have finished with a product in plastic, try to find another purpose for it, and if you cannot find another purpose for it, recycle it through either BRAD, Terracycle or similar programs and try to find alternatives.
AROUND HOME
- Upcycle products - If you have finished with a product or it does not serve its original purpose, try to find another use for it or recycle it properly
- Understand hard-to-recycle items and where to recycle them
- Make your cleaning products or buy products that come with little packaging and are sustainable
- Reduce the amount of paper used - for printing, toilet paper, tissues, and paper towels - a variety of choices on sustainable toilet paper and paper towels include ecocheeks and whogivesacrap
KITCHEN
- Bring reusable produce bags and shopping bags when grocery shopping - the bags can be purchased or can be made at home.
- Buy certified sustainable products when possible.
FOOD
- Reducing meat and animal product consumption - this can be done gradually, for example, one night a week to meat, then can be increased to a few times a week, then every night.
- Eating locally grown produce. Produce can be sourced from farmers' markets or companies that reduce food waste by selling fruit and vegetables that grocery stores do not sell.
- Farmers Markets on the Sunshine Coast
- Composting food waste reduces the amount of food thrown out within the home. Composting prevents the release of methane gas. Meal planning also reduces food from being thrown out because it lessens the possibility of forgetting about food.
- Composting can be done at home with or without worms. The Sunshine Coast Council offers composting and warm farm information. And tumblers and bins can be used to compost and can be made or purchased from gardening companies.
- Order boxes of fruit and vegetables, which grocery stores would have discarded. The produce is local and will be delivered to your door.
- Funky Foods is a company that offers these boxes
- Fresh Box is a company that provides these boxes too, but they are from local farmers
ENERGY
- Support renewable energy - solar panels for electricity, heating and cooling, hot water and geothermal and bioenergy for heating
- Solar guides for households
- Information from Queensland Government about solar power for households
- Information from Australia Government about renewable energy
- Turn off power points and unplug them from the wall when unused.
- When washing clothes, use cold water; this allows for a reduction in fading and wear and tear.
- Line dry clothes and limit dryer use - using dryers increases power bills and can damage clothes.
WATER
- Reduce the amount of water used
- Have shorter showers, use the dishwasher to reduce water compared to hand washing, limit to no water grass, turn off taps when not in use
CLOTHES
- Buy Less -> Consume Less -> Discard Less - Try to reduce the number of things consumed.
- Mend products when they break - when clothing breaks, try to mend it instead of throwing it out; if it cannot be repaired, it can be used as cloth or, depending on the material, could be turned into shopping bags. If not possible, they can be recycled by Planet Ark into industrial rags or textile by-products.
- Clothing/ textiles recycling
- Upparel is an organisation that recycles textiles - 60% of items are new or fit to wear condition, and they are given to charities such as Save the Children, We Are Mobilise, Djirra and many more. 40% are either repurposed by local designers or transformed into UPtex material. Donate to op shops or sell online - If the product is not damaged or worn but not being used, it can be sold online or donated to op shops, which then can be sold to others.
- TreadLightly is a company that recycles unwanted sport and active lifestyle shoes into change room flooring, anti-fatigue mats and playground and gym mats across Australia.
- Planet Ark recycles clothing, textiles and shoes. There are dropoff points across the Sunshine Coast for unwanted or damaged clothing, textiles and shoes.
- TerraCycle Zero Waste Box also recycles shoes and footwear of any type except for in-line skates or ski boots and any clothing related to footwear, such as shoelaces and socks.
ONLINE
Use an alternate browser instead of Google
- Ecosia - free Chrome extension plants trees as you search, around 45 trees search plants one tree
- TreeClicks is a free Chrome extension that plants trees while you search
- Tab for a Cause is a free Chrome extension that raises money for charity every time you open a new browser tab. The causes include preserving our oceans, preventing disease, training entrepreneurs, feeding children, and many more
- OceanHero is a free Chrome extension that removes ocean-bound plastic by searching and opening new tabs. On average, every five searches or 17 tabs, someone is paid to recover the equivalent of one plastic bottle
- Visit Marketforces and look up your bank and superannuation fund - are they investing in fossil fuels if so, change your bank who doesn’t
- Join a local, regional, state, national or international organisation, group or company supporting sustainability
Transport
- Use more public transportation - If you have the ability use public transport - buses are the main public transport service on the Sunshine Coast - taxi and ridesharing is popular transportation that can reduce the amount of cars on the road - trains and rail are limited on the Sunshine Coast (Glasshouse, Beerwah, Landsborough, Eumundi etc.)
- Decrease how much you fly.