The girl bosses of our generation are dedicated to creating productive futures for themselves and the world around them. Part of this mentality means being environmentally-conscious. With this in mind, it’s now important more than ever to commit to more environmentally-conscious habits. We don’t even realize how many of our actions increase our carbon footprint, in other words, the number of greenhouse gases used to support our activities. While this can all be overwhelming, it’s helpful to start small. Here are some useful products for environmentally-conscious girl bosses:
Recycled Notebooks
Jot down your future bestselling ideas in a notebook made from recycled paper. Muji, everyone’s favorite Japanese retailer, sells a variety of minimalist recycled paper notebooks at super inexpensive prices.
Local Food
While food in grocery stores often travels a long way to get to the store you purchase it from, local food has less of a journey, leaving less of a carbon footprint. Not to mention farmers’ markets are a fun trip to make with friends and support the local economy!
Power strip
As almost everything we use is electronically powered nowadays, we consume a lot of energy. A bad habit many of us have is that we often leave our cords plugged into the wall when we’re not using them. An easy way to save time, money and energy is to plug all of our cords into a power strip and turn the strip off when we’re not using the cords.
Reusable straws
When you’re grabbing your iced latte from the bar, don’t grab a straw! Instead, pull out one of your own reusable straws. Making straws requires a lot of unnecessary plastic and our drinks could easily be enjoyed without one. Stainless steel straws are the most recommended because they are easiest to keep clean and very durable.
Reusable water bottle
Most college campuses have a number of water fountains around and many of them are designed to fill water bottles. It would save you a lot of money on water bottles to buy a reusable one! It’s also so much more convenient to stop at a water fountain to fill up, rather than to go out and buy more bottles, and create more plastic waste.
Dishware
Rather than grabbing a plastic fork every time you buy lunch on the go, use your own! Almost every freshman I know invested in a set of dishes from Target this year. Seriously, we all bought the same plates, bowls and silverware. Similarly, it’s a good practice to bring one of your many mugs to the dining hall to get your coffee rather than grabbing a single use coffee cup.
Reusable bags
Whether you’re buying groceries or just doing some shopping, reusable bags will help you reduce the amount of plastic you bring home. Bonus: there are so many cute options! A lot of brands give out free totes when you attend their events, and there are other reusable bags you can buy from your grocery store for as low as 99 cents. Baggu seems to be a popular choice as well for its fun patterns.