What is sustainable living?

Since my blog will be about sustainable living, it's important to define what sustainable living means to me and the importance of living a sustainable lifestyle. Sustainable living is a lifestyle where an individual or society tries to minimize the use of the Earth's natural resources and personal resources. People who practice living a sustainable lifestyle attempt to reduce their consumption of natural resources by altering methods of transportation, diet, and energy consumption.

Information is always better understood through firsthand experiences. In the link below there is the "Ecological Footprint Calculator" which is a quiz to find out how many Earth's it would take in order to current lifestyle I live. When I took the quiz, it told me if everyone lived liked me, it would take 6.7 Earths in order to sustain my lifestyle.

Ecological Footprint Calculator Quiz: https://www.footprintcalculator.org/

I will share some simple and easy ways to change your lifestyle into a more sustainable lifestyle that uses less Earth's and personal resources. The first is REDUCE, REUSE, and RECYCLE. Don't buy plastic water bottles or use plastic bags at the grocery store, rather buy a reusable water bottle and use reusable grocery bags. Reducing amount of waste is the most important part of the 3 R's, since it's the easiest, so be conscious of the amount of waste you produce as an individual. 

The next thing to do in order to live a sustainable lifestyle is unplug phone chargers and other appliances when not in use in order to reduce energy consumption. Also, take shorter showers and don't run the water when brushing your teeth in order to reduce the amount of water used. Living a sustainable lifestyle can be challenging, but making minor adjustments to your everyday routine can help save the planet, such as no more plastic water bottles or unplugging appliances when not using.

Introduction Post to My Sustainable Lifestyle Blog

This is my first blog post on "Living a Sustainable Lifestyle as a College Student" and the reason for this post is to inform my readers the purpose of this blog and why it's important to me. I grew up in Western Maryland near Lake Linganore located in Frederick, MD.

I spent most of my free time as a kid exploring outdoors with my friends and families. My favorite childhood memories are riding my bike to the lake to go on boats, swim, and jump off cliffs into the water with my friends. I still have a passion for the outdoors especially hiking and fishing that I still enjoy when I am back home.

The reason for my blog is to educate my peers about how to live a more sustainable life that is helping the environment while saving them money. Small changes in your everyday routine can significantly reduce the amount of waste an individual causes throughout one's life.

If more people become aware of the environmental impacts their every day decisions make, they will be more likely to make environmentally conscious decisions every day. College students often don't take the time to think about how their decisions impact the environment,  so educating my peers about environmentally friendly alternatives can make a big impact to help the environment.

Throughout this semester, I will be discussing the importance and how to live a sustainable life by providing reusable products, ways to improve air quality in dorms, reduce waste in the kitchen, how to properly recycle, ways to educate peers, promote environmentally friendly options to school, etc. I am far from being an expert about this subject, but I believe it's important to educate one another about the reasons behind being environmentally conscious throughout our lives because people need to understand the reason why behind their decisions and why I believe it's important to live a sustainable lifestyle.