Sustain to Maintain: Sustainability Tips for a Healthy Home

Sustainability is here to stay and here at SHLTR, we love sharing ideas for how to make your space more sustainable inside and out. From make-your-own, all-purpose house cleaners, to tips for dressing your home in secondhand furniture finds, there’s always a way to be more sustainable.

Compost 

Committing to a compost system at home can help you reduce food waste and can turn your trash into nutritious soil for your garden and landscape. Composting containers are available at home improvement stores, and you can find a million tutorials online for building your own. Start small and get the hang of it. Composting services are popping up in neighborhoods across the nation. If you don’t want to create your own compost system, pay a fee instead and have it hauled away by the pros.

Reuse and Reduce

Secondhand, thrift and salvage finds are a great way to furnish and decorate your home. Reusing is affordable and can also be satisfying. Think of all the Amazon packaging you can divert if you look for used first. Don’t forget other easy ways to be more sustainable like ditching paper towels in lieu of cloth napkins, buying more in bulk and using glass reusable containers for food storage, and avoiding single use plastics as much as possible.

DIY the Basics

It’s never been easier to create your own cleaning products at home. There are hundreds and thousands of recipes for counter spray, toilet cleaner, laundry detergent and more. This is one of the easiest ways to save money, reuse materials and control what ingredients are being used in your home. Here’s an easy DIY, all-purpose spray cleaner recipe:

First, get yourself a 16-ounce spray bottle. Then you’ll need:

• 2 cups of distilled water
• 4 Tbsp of liquid castile soap
• 20-25 drops of your favorite essential oil

Add the water to the spray bottle first, then the soap and the oils. For extra essence, squeeze a fresh lemon or lime into the mix.