The negative impact our throwaway consumerism is highlighted in the news almost every day. Instagram influencers, bloggers and celebrities are using their social media presence exposure to promote healthier ways to eat, ethical ways to buy and highlighting environmental issues. We are also becoming mindful of where our food comes from and where our products are purchased, and eventually where they end up. We are moving away from products and services churned out of unethical overseas factories, there is a positive swing to buying local and instead of dumping the trash, we separate and recycle where we can.
But, when it comes to moving house, can you do it in a green way? The answer is yes, and without too much extra effort! With just a little pre-planning you can move green in 5 easy steps.
Only Move What You Need
It may sound a silly phrase to use, but especially when it comes to family homes, you’ll be amazed at how many unused items and unpacked dusty boxes end up being moved from one spare room or garage to another. It may seem a bit overwhelming, especially if you have lots of rooms, but by going through the home room by room and separating into three piles; sell, garbage, keep, you’ll remove almost a third of your items. It’s quite surprising! By selling unused items at a garage sale, or on ebay you can also earn a few dollars towards your move, or for some nice new household items.
Choose A Green Removalist
There are plenty of removalists out there, but by choosing one that operates a green philosophy guarantees a green moving experience. How does a removalist credit themselves as green? Well, There are online marketplaces which advertise moving jobs, these transporters book jobs from the site to fill up any empty spaces in a truck or trailer, or book a job on a return route. This is called ‘backloading’. Backloading means maximizing the space and journey of a truck and therefore reduces emissions and the amount of trucks and vans on the road due to less trips needed.
Assess Your Utility Bills
Moving house is the perfect time to take a look at your utility bills and move to a greener option. You can often find great deals for switching and by using a comparative website you don’t need to spend hours trawling for the best electricity, gas and telecom bills. Greener companies want your business, so be afraid to call them and ask for a little more discount in order to get the sign up, often times for new customers, it’ll work!
Sustainability Clean After A Green Move
Embrace the shift to greener cleaning practices and minimise environmental impact and reduce waste in the following ways after moving.
- Introduce, maintain and improve the recycling process and ethical disposal for all types of commercial and industrial materials
- Use a range of natural, green and chemical free cleaning products which can be used in schools, childcare centres, heritage, green star and medical centres without compromising cleaning quality
- For commercial cleaning practices Operate re-use and re-wash policy using microfibre cloths, eliminating disposal wipes from landfill
- Conscious use of water and water management
- Turn off equipment and lights left on when everyone else has gone home
- A wide range of green, recycled and chemical free consumables
Reduce Plastic & Waste During Your Move
Moving house can create a large pile of boxes, reams of bubble wrap and plastic and polystyrene packing pellets. You can reduce the boxes you have to unpack and the waste you create by using what you have for packing and wrapping! Bedding and blankets are great for wrapping up TV’s, DVD players, games consoles and computer screens. Cushions and pillows are great protection for fragile items and tea towels are ideal for putting between dinner plates to stop them clanking and breaking. Less boxes to unpack and hardly anything to put in the trash!
Change Your Lightbulbs
When you move into your new home, swap over the lightbulbs to energy saving ones. Particularly if you are moving into an older building, you may find that the bulbs are power guzzling old light bulbs. Swapping over not only saves the environment, it will reduce your power bills too!
While using your towel bedding etc for dishes & breakables etc sounds great keep in mind most people will then turn around & wash said items which in turn will waste resources. Using them for large items such as TVs is great as you will taking them right off your bed & will probably be washing them anyway. Using newspapers you can collect from other & that can be recycled is a much better way to wrap dishes & other fragile items.
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