With increasing pressure on all of us to do more to protect the planet and its natural resources, there has never been a better time to embrace some more ‘green’ and sustainable shopping habits. It can be a scary thought, as it can feel like you need to spend a lot more money if you want to shop sustainably.

But in many cases, it means saving money, and buying things to last, rather than quick and fast fashion. On top of all of this, shopping sustainably is something that can enrich your life and it is something that ensures you are doing your bit for the environment. If we all do more, then great things can happen. So with all of that in mind, here are some easy tips to help you to shop more sustainably.

Buy local

Next time you plan to go shopping, first, think about how far the product that you are choosing to buy has had to travel. It can be hard to find local things, but look for those things that have been harvested or created locally. If something is local, it will have travelled less, often be fresher (in terms of food), and taste much better too. For things like furniture in the home, things that have been created closer to home, like a wrought iron bed frame, for example, will be much more sustainable than shipping in something from the other side of the world. It is a great thing to support local small businesses where you can too.

Choose sustainable products

When you go shopping, being able to look for products that have been responsibly sourced, as well as produced without some harmful chemicals. It can be anything from Fair Trade foods to organic cotton t-shirts. If you are buying seafood, for example, think about things that are MSC certified (Marine Stewardship Council mark), and then you can look out for products that have an FSC label (Forest Stewardship Council), which can be things from wooden furniture to toilet rolls.

Reduce plastic waste

You just look around the shelves in any shop, and there is so much plastic packaging everywhere; it can be hard to avoid. As a result, it can be really hard to avoid anything that is unnecessarily packaged in a material that can’t be recycled. Buying things like fresh fruit and vegetables that are loose, rather than those that are wrapped in plastic. Taking your own shopping bags is something that we have been doing for years, but there are still people buying the 5p plastic bags. The problem with plastic is real, both with how it is produced and how it is all disposed of.

Biodegradable cleaning products

You can pay a little more for natural and green cleaning products, but you can also make a lot of your own natural cleaning products, and they still work just as well as the chemical-laden products that are used up quickly and are all in plastic. Costs aside, though, buying cleaning products that are biodegradable is better for the environment and the water that we use.