INTRODUCTION
Green lifestyle is any action or activity that results in a positive impact, to any degree, on the environment so that the planet can continue to support future generations. The practice of green living minimizes or eliminates toxins (poisons) from our environment as well as reducing and eliminating purely destructive habits. The goal and purpose of green living is preserving and improving the health of planet Earth for all. This definition of green living embraces our personal environments, including the internal environment of our bodies, our home, work and social environments as well as the whole planet’s environment. Green lifestyle is fundamentally the application of sustainability to lifestyle choice and decisions. Green lifestyle is the concept that have three bottom line such as ecological, societal, and economical needs without compromising these factors for future generations. There are also four element that interconnected social domains: economics, ecology, politics and culture. Green living means making sustainable choices about what we eat, how we travel, what we buy, and how we use and dispose of it. We can implement sustainability in our workplace practices, and by greening the buildings we inhabit. Our everyday choices can create a sustainable lifestyle. The subject of green living is growing in popularity and importance as we face several different problems relating to lifestyles and practices that are actually destructive to our environments.
Learning and practicing green living is something that we can do about these problems as individuals, families, groups and nations to start turning the scene around. According to the definition of green living, we can make more choices that benefit our health. This of course, depends on knowing how our personal product choices and actions affect our health and the environment. For starters, find some green living products and tips to try. Then incorporate those that work for us into our lifestyle. Communities that adapt the green lifestyle generally strive to minimize waste, reduce consumption and preserve open space. additionally, they don’t consume resources faster than they can be replenished, and they don’t produce waste faster than it can be assimilated back into the environment. We can create green lifestyle by designing the neighborhood to encourage walking or bicycling is one way sustainable communities put these first two principles into practice and also less driving means less gas and reduced emissions. By sustainable of green lifestyle, we attempt to reduce carbon emission by rectifying how we consume energy, methods of transportation and the food we consume. Recycling is the part of the green lifestyle that may seem like a relatively recent phenomenon in today’s world, but archeologists are discovering that our prehistoric ancestors lived a green lifestyle. According to growing evidence, the objects that they used in their daily lives, creating new utensils from broken tools made of flint or bone. From here, we know that the history of green lifestyle have been started long time ago and been developed more effectively when Rachel Carson (1907-1964) certainly helped foster a reawakening of environmentalism, but it was Henry David Thoreau, in his book Maine Woods, who called for the conservation of and respect for nature and the federal preservation of virgin forests. There are many ways and activities in many countries over the world that promoted green lifestyle to the public in order to educate the public about the healthy living and safe our planet. The green lifestyle are categorized into many part such as shelter, food, transportation, energy and utilities, waste and recycling, and so forth.
The types of green lifestyle that we can applied in our daily can be started from eat healthy and organic foods, use eco-friendly transportation such as hybrid electric cars, the power saving of energy by unplugging every appliance that we don’t use, shopping using the reuseable bags and many more. The characteristics of green lifestyle are built using sustainable methods, materials, and facilitate green practices, enabling a more sustainable lifestyle. The choicse that we make everyday will help us create green lifestyle. Their construction and maintenance have neutral impacts on the Earth. For example, we can start gardening at our house yard with the trees, herba plant, flower to create the green environment that gives fresh air and healthy living. In addition, gardening can be our new hobby where it is relaxing hobby that can be enjoyed by people from any age group. To sustain the green lifestyle in our daily routine, we can assess products on the basis of their entire life-cycle, not simply the time we use it and also support companies that will take back products after their useful life and reuse the materials. There are many benefits of green lifestyle to consumer, society, countries and also to entrepreneurs such as green lifestyle help to reduce pollution, help the consumers become healthier by consuming the safety products, helping to maintain the ecological balance on the earth, so that all living beings can survive and thrive in their natural habitats. The important benefit of green living lifestyle is making this planet sustainable. The rate at which we consume the resource available in the world would leave nothing left for the future generations. For the entrepreneurs, the products or services that promote green lifestyle can be the competitive advantages to attract the customers to purchase from them.
THE CHARACTERISTICS OF GREEN LIFESTYLE
The green lifestyle means to pursue knowledge and practices that can lead to more environmentally friendly and ecologically responsible decisions and lifestyles, which can help to protect the enviroment and at the same time, sustain its natural resources for current and future generations. A green lifestyle involves the choices that we have to make in our daily routine such as what we buy and consume, how we travel, what we eat to gain the healthy bodies. Green living also refers to the way of life that enables us to preserve the Earth, its natural resources and maintaining the ecological balance of our environment. Adopting a green living philosophy simply means making choices and decisions that have the most positive effect possible for all of these environments. Ten years ago,the concept of green living was something that foreign to most people but now, however, many family across the country make it as a priority to buy organic foods and seek out green services in a quest to live a healthy lifestyle. One common misconception about green behaviors, it is possible to live a green lifestyle without spending a lot of money, and the changes made could also lead to financial saving in the future. In order to maintain a sustainable green lifestyle, it is very important to eliminate or decrease our reliance on importing on foreign oil which both for enviromental and political reasons. Most of the energy we consume comes from non-renewable or non disposal resources and most of these types of this products can cause pollution and defeats the issue of environmental protection.
There are many types of renewable resources are developed and used by the communities and also individuals, which is great in living a green lifestyle, but not quite mainstream yet. It is important to shed light on replacing current sources of energy and adopting alternative resources as a part of our lives in order to life a green lifestyle. There will be the characteristics of the green lifestyle that we must implement to achieve sustainability starting in our own house,workplace and where ever we go. The characteristics must be fulfill the green lifestyle so that we can gain the benefits from what we have implemented in our daily life. Firstly, the characteristics of household that applied green lifestyle, we can start by making a significant contribution to protect the environment by stopping the use of items that are supposed to make our live easier. The simple ways to green lifestyle in our own house is saving of electricity and turned off the light that we do not use. Even saving water is part of a green lifestyle and drying our clothes outside in the sun instead of using dryers. It is very true those chemicals, which we need for cleaning is also harmful to the environment, so when we use and make up our own cleaning combinations at home, we will do a lot in saving the environment. By unplugging every appliance that we don’t use, we aren’t emitting phantom energy, which costs us money.
We ren’t using the Earth’s precious energy uselessly and emitting dangerous CO2 into the air which harms the ozone layer. We can begin to find sources of renewable energy instead. In addition, the other ways that we do is by starting with simple things to create green lifestyle household is, like changing our lightbulbs to LEDs, by growing some food in whatever small or large space that we have, whether it be pea vines up a wall and herbs in a windowbow, or turning a vacant lot into an organic farm. We can converrt the products in our homes to products made with safe, non-toxic and environmentally sensitive ingredients. As we can afford it, we can add solar panels for hot water and electricity, catch rainwater and filter it, possibly install composting toilets and grey water treatment systems, and maybe even figure out a way to make money from home so as to reduce the need to travel. Beside that, we can gain the benefits of living green such as the cut cosst either in a household, a community or a nation. By conserving resources and energy will help to prevent the waste of electricity, water and adopting the greener way of living that will assist us in reducing unnecessary expenses. Second characteristics of green lifestyle that have been applied to many houses, in western countries there are many houses are built using sustainable methods, materials, and facilitate green practices, enabling a more sustainable lifestyle.
Their construction and maintenance have neutral impacts on the Earth. Often, Sometimes, they are off-the-grid homes that do not require any public energy, water, or sewer service. Sustainably designed houses are generally sited so as to create as little of a negative impact on the surrounding ecosystem as possible, oriented to the sun so that it creates the best possible microclimate (typically, the long axis of the house or building should be oriented east-west), and provide natural shading or wind barriers where and when needed, among many other considerations. Third characteristics of green lifestyle in our nutrition, we can begin to purchase organic or from locally grown farms instead of common grocery stores. Organic and local grown produce are essentially much more expensive to purchase, but we are helping the environment by purchasing products that contain added pesticides which not only harm the environment, but our bodies as well. By buying locally we are keeping small town farmers in business which helps keep green in their pockets and feed their families. Besides that, buying local and organic food requires less fuel for shipping or petrochemical based fertilizers and pesticides that can be harmful to human health and the environment. Therefore, purchasing and supporting organic products is another fundamental contribution to sustainable living.
Organic farming is a rapidly emerging trend in the food industry and in the web of sustainability. It is based on minimal use of off-farm inputs and on management practices that restore, maintain, or enhance ecological harmony. The primary goal of organic agriculture is to optimize the health and productivity of interdependent communities of soil life, plants, animals and people. By sustaining these goals, organic agriculture are uses techniques such as crop rotation, permaculture, compost, green manucure and biological pest control besides organic farming also prohibits or strictly limits the use of manufactured fertilizers and pesticides, plant grwoth regulators such food additives, genetically modified organisms or hormones. Organic farmed products are like vegetables, fruits, grains, herbs, meat, dairy, eggs, fibers and also flowers. Fourth characteristics of the green lifestyle in transportation concept, we can learn to commute by taking public transit, like a bus or train. Another way is by carpool with another co-worker to work each day and also ride bike, or walk if work isn’t too far away form our house. All of these options are environmentally friendly as public
transportation carries many people at once, rather than a car which usually carries one person at a time. Public transportation saves you money as it is usually around RM 60-70 a month for a public transit pass, while gas expenses can be anywhere from around RM 200-400 a month. By carpooling we are essentially using one less vehicle to clutter the streets and highways. Meanwhile, biking and walking are by far the most environmentally friendly things on the planet which use no gas, and therefore produce no pollution Driving result environmental pollution due to release of dangerous gases as a result of burning fuel and vehicle are use worldwide that lead to lots of harmful gases are release to the atmosphere leading to detrimental effect into our environment.
So that, by walking we will improve our health and at the same time protect our environment. With rising peak oil concerns, climate warming exacerbated by carbon emissions and high energy prices, the conventional automobile industry is becoming less and less feasible to the conversation of sustainability. Such urban transport systems should consist of a combination of rail transport, bus transport, bicycle pathways and pedestrian walkways. In other ways to sustain green lifestyle into our daily life, we can drive hybrid cars that make use of both gasoline and electric energy. These are better for the environment because they do not use as much gas or emit as much toxic fumes. Many manufacturers are focusing more on hybrid and eco friendly vehicles. In contrast to plug-in hybrid cars, electric bikes do not directly use any fossil fuels. Adequate sustainable urban transportation is dependent upon proper city infrastructure and planning that incorporates efficient public transit along with bicycle and pedestrian-friendly pathways. Hybrid and electric vehicles are expensive where if we have a car that still runs well, keep it but make a few changes to the way we drive. In addition, regularly clean out our car to avoid weighing it down with unnecessary “junk”. A heavier car will use more gas, which why it is important to reduct the clutter. Finally,make sure our tires have enough air in therm and we will get more miles to the gallon if we are vigilant about our air pressure. If we want to help the Earth but we don’t want to spend a lot of money, make small changes to our driving habits, install energy efficient appliances, and look for ways to cut back on your waste.
Fifth characteristics of green lifestyle that we applied for the container or bags that we will use everyday, we can use reusable coffee mugs, and reusable water bottles to work and we go. Here, we helping to saves tree from becoming a paper cup that is essentially non recyclable. Currently, there are many coffee shops now offer a 10 cent discount for bringing in our own reusable mug. Starbucks is the example the coffee shops that use reusable cups where reuseable cups keep our drinks, like coffee hotter, and cold drinks, like water, colder. They can be a little expensive to buy outright, but they save the environment, and our money. The other characteristic of green lifestyle that we can apply is by investing in cleaning products that are green, biodegradable, and uses less harmful plastic containers. The less plastic in the containers, the better they are for the environment. One of the most environmentally friendly cleaning products to use in our home is vinegar. It’s non toxic, is not harmful to us, our little ones or to the environment. The smell is not pleasant, mind us, but it’s safer to know that if we accidentally ingest it we aren’t going to die as it doesn’t contain any harmful chemicals. It is a multipurpose cleaner that can be used on any surface without causing harm. In order to adapt the green lifestyle, we need to invest in reusable lunch bags, stainless steal containers, reusable napkins, and reusable cloth snack baggies. We will save money by bringing our own lunch from home everyday, and save the environment by not throwing away lunch containers, lunch wrappers and paper cups out at lunch everyday.
Thousands of trees are torn down each year to make the containers for fast food items, the paper bags that our lunch is placed in,the paper cups we drink from and the wrapper that our food is wrapped in. By bringing our lunch to work everyday in a reusable container we are saving trees from being torn down for useless items. In University of Technology Petronas, Tronoh, Perak, is the example of university that applied the green lifestyle in the campus area where every food court must used the paper container when the students take away their meals. The greening of mainstream society has added additional complexity to the age-old “paper or plastic” dilemma. We all understand that reusable shopping bags are more environmentally responsible than disposable paper bags or plastic bags. It is often made from fabric such as canvas, woven synthetic fibers, or a thick plastic that is more durable than disposable plastic bags, allowing multiple use.Reusable shopping bags are a kind of carrier bag, which are available for sale in supermarkets and apparel shops. Reusable shopping bags require more energy to produce than common plastic shopping bags. In our country itself, we have declared that Saturday is the day that we don’t use plastic bags when shopping at groceries, supermarkets and also other shops.
There will charged around 20 cent if the customers want to use plastic bags on Saturday. Sixth characteristics that we can apply to sustain green lifestyle are by implement the 3R activities that such as recycle, reduce, reuse. We can start to familiarize ourself with the first R by purchasing second hand products. There are many shops that sell second hand items to the consumers and also buy the second hand items from the customer. We can also begin to shop at thrift stores for clothing and household items. To avoid wastage, we can find places that recycle old ink cartridges, cell phones, computers and appliances. By recycling and looking for alternatives to the trash, weare keeping the Earth clean and free of debris that essentially leaks very harmful chemicals into the environment. Recycling is very important in leading a green lifestyle and there are also variety ways to recyle more than just cell phones, batteries and eletronics. Composting is another great source for environmental protection as we put waste back into our garden and save money at the same time. Furthermore, too have green lifestyle at workplace or at home, where it is possible use a laptop and computers that have become common machine for use at the office and in our home. Laptop preserve energy by 50% as compared to desktop,so that, using laptop will be preferable because it is affordable and can easily be moved to any where at anytime. In this situation also, if our appliances are several years old, considering switching them out for energy efficient models. While we will be spending more money and the utility bills should go down as a result, leading to quite a bit of savings in the future. In addition, we can donate or recycle the old appliances so that we don’t increase landfill waste. There are number of ways to reduce waste in sustainable living which one of it is by reducing paper waste such as taking action to cancel junk mai and move paper transaction to an online document. Another method to reduce waste is to buy in bulk, which reduces packaging materials. Food waste can be reintegrated into the environment through composting. Composting can carried out at home or locally, with community composting . An additional example of how to reduce waste is being cognizant of not buying materials with limited
use in exces such as paint. By resuing materials, one lives sustainably by not contributing to the addition of waste to landfills. Reuse saves natural resources by decreasing the necessity of raw materials extraction. Recycling is the process that breaks down used items into raw materials to make new materials, is a particularly useful means of contributing to the renewal of goods. By intergrating measures of reusing, reducing and recycling one can effectively reduce production of waste and use materials in a sustainable manner. Lastly, the characteristics of green lifestyle that we can apply to our own body is by stop smoking. Smoking is the worst thing for the environment and for our wallet. Cigarettes leak over 4000 toxic chemicals into the environment as well as our body and it is the hardest habit to break. There is an alternative to a regular cigarette though. It is called GreenSmoke. It is an electric cigarette that contains only 4 ingredients (nicotine, water, propylene glycol, and flavoring) which are not harmful to the environment. It emits a vapor rather than the smoke that we would normally find in a regular cigarette. The cartridges come in a variety of flavors such as chocolate, strawberry, apple, menthol, regular, coffee and vanilla. We won’t need to worry about littering the ground with this cool electric cigarette, as it is rechargable. We can also stop consuming the items that can harm our health, our environment and other lifes. For parenting, paper diapers are dangerous for babies bums as they contain bleach to make them white, as well as chlorine and have numerous fragrances to make them have that “clean” as new smell. It takes so many trees to make paper diapers, and each paper diaper takes 500 years to degrade in a landfill. Now cloth diapers are the best thing for the environment and fulfilled the characteristic for us to apply as the green lifestyle. There are no fragrances and no dyes, they are reusable, and can be used for many children. They pay for themselves within a few months of purchasing, are cuter than paper, and gentler on baby’s bum. Cloth are gentler on the environment because there are no trees being cut down to manufacture them, there are no harmful chemicals in them, and they won’t be sitting in a landfill for 500 years.They are the greenest thing for a baby’s bum as well as for the environment.
