Simon Fraser University
Engaging the World

Starter level

Full-on level

Dishes

Instead of soluble plastic tabs and sulfate-laden dishwasher detergents, use a blend of baking soda and Borax in the detergent tray of your dishwasher.

Don’t use a dishwasher. Hand wash in a small amount of very hot water with natural soap. Short hot rinse blasts will help keep the water warm while not adding too much water volume.

Laundry

Use a small amount of Borax instead of detergent. Wash in cold water only (you only need hot water if you’re dealing with bed bugs). Use a drying rack or clothesline most of the time, instead of a dryer.

Wash in cold water only. Use no detergent—if there’s a stain, dampen the cloth first and rub some soap into it. Always use a drying rack or clothesline.

Toilet

Don’t flush every time: if it’s yellow, let it mellow; if it’s brown, flush it down. Use as little paper as you can. Buy toilet paper made mostly from recycled paper.

Don’t flush every time. Use no toilet paper: everyone in the household gets a toilet cloth that they rinse out after use and put in the laundry once a week.

Personal hygiene

Use aluminum-free deodorant. Use natural soaps and toothpastes. Put the hair from your brush/comb in the compost bin. Buy floss, not disposable dental sticks. If you buy paper menstrual/bladder paper products, try to find ones made from recycled paper. Don’t wear perfume or plug scents into the wall. Don’t shower (or wash your hair) every day.

Use a mineral salt deodorant crystal or no deodorant. Use natural soap. Use baking soda as toothpaste, on your wooden toothbrush. Put the hair from your brush/comb in the compost bin. Make sure your dental floss is compostable. If you menstruate, use washable cloth pads or a vaginal cup insert. If you have bladder leaks, use washable cloth pads. Make your own shampoo. Don’t buy any scented products at all. Only shower (or wash your hair) once a week.

Grocery shopping

Buy reusable produce bags (cloth mesh or Ziploc veg bags) and take them with you to the store, washing the bags after you’ve eaten the veg. Keep cloth bags with you for carrying groceries. Avoid buying products that come in plastic you can’t reuse. Reuse bread bags, e.g. to enclose open packages in the fridge and freezer. Buy organic fruit and veg if you can. Use more tinned and bottled foods instead of frozen in plastic bags. Don’t buy bottled water—use the tap. Grow herbs on your windowsill.

Use reusable bags or wax cloth for produce/cheese and keep cloth carrier bags with you. Try to buy no single-use plastic and reuse hard plastics before recycling. Go to markets instead of grocery stores whenever you can. Support local farmers and natural food sellers with your business. Use public transit or a bicycle to go shopping, or get groceries delivered only if the company minimizes packaging, provides local food, and uses no plastic. Grow veg in containers and/or your yard if you have one.

Meals

Cut your weekly eating out or take-out in half. Do not buy those half-prepared meal boxes: they produce huge amounts of waste-at-source and packaging and cost you more per meal than making meals from scratch. Try harder to use up your produce before it goes bad! Have red meat only once or twice a week. Buy organic and fair trade if you can. Compost scraps.

Only eat out on special occasions. Make everything you can from scratch: e.g. make bread, yogurt, mayonnaise, kimchi, etc. Use glass or metal or paper containers for leftovers. Go pescatarian or vegetarian or vegan. If you eat eggs, buy free range and organically fed, in compostable containers. Repurpose/compost scraps.

Garbage

Challenge yourself to cut your household’s garbage by a specific amount. Reuse things before you recycle them. Make sure you know the rules for your community’s recycling/composting and make full use of the program.

Challenge yourself to cut your household’s garbage to almost nothing (my current level is one small plastic grocery bag every three months, for one person). Reuse and repurpose things before you recycle them. Make a trip to a recycling depot with stuff your community program won’t take. Have your own composter on a balcony, in a worm container, or in a yard.

Housecleaning

Don’t buy drain cleaners: once every month or two, seal the overflow holes, put baking soda then vinegar down the drain, plug it quickly, and boil a kettle of water to pour down the drain once the fizzing has stopped. Buy natural cleansers. Don’t use a Swiffer-type mop unless you can wash and reuse the pad. Crochet dishcloths and other cleaning cloths out of cotton yarn. Don’t buy plastic scrubbies—look for wooden organic bristle brushes.

Use baking soda, Borax, and vinegar to clean pretty much everything (including drains—see starter level). Try ketchup to clean copper, and get other tips from YouTube. Make dishcloths and other cleaning cloths out of worn-out clothes/rags (either flat or braided to give thickness). Use a broom and dustpan or a mop; try to do mostly without a vacuum cleaner.

Power and heat

Replace incandescent bulbs with LEDs. Use lower wattage of bulbs. Don’t leave lights on in rooms you’re not in. Don’t leave your computer or phone on all the time. Use rechargeable batteries. Turn the heat down (or the air conditioner up) by 2 degrees C past where you have it now.

Unplug electrical items when not in use…maybe not the stove, because that’s a right pain, but toaster, microwave, lamps, TV/radio, battery chargers, etc. Turn the heat down (or air conditioner up) another degree or two. Only use lights when you need them. If you’ve got the resources and ability, try adding a solar cell or another way to generate your own power. Try having a planned power outage day—it’ll make things easier for you to handle real power outages.

Clothing

Don’t buy “fast fashion.” Avoid buying synthetic (i.e. petroleum-based) fabrics as much as you can. Keep your clothes for years, not months. Mend things. If you’re donating, make sure they’re for local re-use, not shipped to Africa or somewhere else to sit on a big dumped pile and rot. (The amount of clothing in the world today would clothe everyone for the next eighty years, and yet we keep making more.)

Buy secondhand clothes and/or make your own. When they’re past mending, remake them into other garments, make them into cleaning rags, or make a braided rug from them.