How To Get Happier With Less Plastic

How To Get Happier With Less Plastic

As illustrated in Pharrell’s new documentary (yes, it is a documentary and it’s going to make you want to cry!), today we live in the age of plastic. There is plastic everywhere, it‘s all around us, it’s even in us. We have literally ‚plasticized‘ ourselves.

Scientists had a closer look on plastic pollution in the ocean of all sizes and it’s simply overwhelming how much is actually floating out there.

It’s indeed bizarre that the things we use for only seconds will be there for 1000 years to eventually be broken down if not eaten by that baby seal. We just throw it away, but where exactly is away.

This is a global issue and we are more connected in this than we might realize. While big organizations are still producing new plastic instead of using recycled plastic, some others are coming up with creative solutions to make positive changes. The 23-year-old Lauren Singer based in Brooklyn is a great role model and inspiration to us because she is even living free of plastic. She made two years of plastic trash fit in one single mason jar. Lauren says that since she is living a zero-waste lifestyle her life has improved a lot. She saves money, eats better and is happier than before.

As we all have demanding jobs and busy social lives, there is not always much room for making conscious choices. Here are some simple tips that will make you hop off the ‘plastic-train’:

1. Reuse glass jars

There is lots of prepared food you can buy in glass jars like peanut butter, pasta sauce or juices. If you end up buying these don’t throw them out. Simply wash and reuse them so you won’t need any plastic to store food. You can also bring them when you buy bulk food. If you have plastic containers leftover from yoghurt or other food, don’t throw them away you can use them to store food as well.

glass jars instead of plastic

 

Shop Smart & don’t buy Waste

2. Just BYOB (bring your own bag)

Luckily cotton bags are popping up everywhere. Go shopping with hip reusable totes while skipping all those plastic bags. If you don’t have these yet it may cost you a little, but there won’t be any extra costs for the environment in turn.

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3. Opt for glass products

Yesterday I went grocery shopping when it hit me: Have you ever noticed how many products you buy that come with plastic packaging? Next time we do our grocery, let’s have a second look whether we can buy the same produce without the plastic e.g. oil in glass bottle versus plastic bottle.

 4. Go to a small shop or to the market

It’s much easier to resist the plastic packaging when doing your groceries in a small shop. Here you can just fill in your reused containers and bags with everything you need. Choosing to buy bulk food is the perfect way to avoid any packaging. Using a reusable wine carrier may make it easiest to carry all your glass jars home. What’s even better, see if you can make time to go to the local market and fill your own shopping basket.

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Spot Hidden Plastic

5. Say ‘no’ to Straws

There are fancy, reusable stainless steel or glass drinking straws if you don’t want to give up on straws. If you are in a restaurant you may simply tell the waiter/waitress that you don’t need a straw.

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 6. Give up that Gum

Actually gum in its origin was made of chicle, a natural rubber. However, nowadays we purchase synthetic gum consisting of polyethylene and polyvinyl acetate which in fact makes us makes us chew and probably also on toxics. Healthy alternatives you might like are licorice root, sunflower seeds or nuts, mints or parsley for a fresh breath.

7. Check out the CrazyRussianHacker

You have already bought plastic bottles and don’t know what to do with them? Check out these 5 Recycled Life Hacks.

“Let’s stop this plasticization and instead challenge ourselves joining the zero-waste movement!”

Let’s do it all together. Are you in?

Master Your Habits Using These 6 Free Apps

Master Your Habits Using These 6 Free Apps

 

Do you have habits that you wish you didn’t have? Maybe you want to train yourself to lose those habits and create better ones. Perhaps you want to exercise more, stop smoking, go to bed earlier or even call your mom more often.

For some of us, we might feel like we live on auto-pilot and we just keep going without consciously directing our time towards things that will help us feel good long-term.

Probably you can relate with this situation:

You’re on your bike or in the car and you’re taking the route to your house that you always take. Suddenly you wake up and realize that half an hour has passed! You can’t remember anything you’ve heard, felt or seen.

The habit of cycling or driving on that route is so engrained in your psyche that it is not consciously registered anymore. The same happens to many other habits we have. Imagine how this translates to bad habits such as binge-eating, smoking, anger issues and drinking alcohol excessively.

When you have certain bad habits for a long time it will be harder to loosen the automatic behavior because your brain’s hardwiring will be protesting more to stay the way it is. Similar to addiction, our body is ‘addicted’ to certain behaviors and will show signs of ‘withdrawal’ when the urge for the deeply-hardwired habit is not met.

14 habits app nathaniel emmons

The wonderful thing is that you can consciously build new connections in your brain’s neurochemistry by focusing your attention on the new habit and by embracing the feelings of discomfort caused by change.  You can train your brain to make a habit of desired behavior.

You’ll have less time to engage with old habits, the more time you spent building your new habits!

 

So how long does it take to build a new habit? Researchers at the University College of London estimated that it takes on average 66 days to perform an action ‘without thinking’ e.g. the practice becomes an automatic response triggered by a contextual situation or object.

What if there was a way of holding yourself accountable to keep new habits such as through being reminded regularly, joining a group of people engaging with the same new habit, seeing your progress and setting rewards for yourself?

There is! Have a look at these 6 free apps that can help you keep good habits:

Coach.me (Previously Lift)

This easy to use app gives you the opportunity to choose to be cheered on by a community of members with the same habit goals. You can also choose to hire a coach that will help you through the app. Your progress can be showed in either calender, table or pie-chart format. It can be opened in your browser too.

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Strides

This app lets you visually see the progress of your habits the most accurately of this list. There is also a desktop version. If you like to monitor closely how your habits are doing, this will be a powerful tool.

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Way of Life

Way of life app does a great job in visually showing streaks of habits. There is also the opportunity to skip days. It gives you a good overview of how the week or month is going and what the trend is. It is a very straight forward app, this makes it efficient quickly.

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Good Habits

This app gives you a wonderful choice of color and you can easily see how your week and month is progressing. You can also choose not to do a certain habit certain days a week and you can pause habits.

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irunurun

irunurun is a magnificient way to take on a challenge with a team. You can both manage your habits and track your progress on your phone or desktop.

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Balanced

This appealing app focuses on balancing your habits better. You can choose how often you want to do a certain habit per day, week or month. The app has an approachable user-interface which makes for easy habit tracking.

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Enjoy building on your good habits and let us know what your favorite is in the comments below or on the facebook/twitter post!