Sustainability at Home

Family Tips: Sustainability at Home

Our previous articles about sustainability at home have been very popular with families. So this month we have even more fun and earth-friendly ideas for your family

Donate or Re-sell Unused Children’s Toys

Donating or selling toys that are still in good condition but no longer used by your child will teach them about the benefits of recycling and re-using to reduce waste.

Not only that, you’ll clear some space and your child could even earn a few dollars if you can sell the items via Gumtree, Marketplace or similar.

Arts and Crafts with Recycled Items

You can encourage your child’s creativity while helping the environment. Think about items that would normally go straight into the recycling or rubbish bin that could be used for arts and crafts projects.

Some examples are:

• empty paper towel rolls
• empty fruit punnets
• empty delivery boxes
• empty bubble-wrap pouches
• used envelopes
• empty plastic bottles
• bottle caps
• single-sided printed paper or letters

The options here are endless – as limitless as your child’s creativity and imagination!

Reading Books About the Environment

For many families, a story before bed is an embedded part of the daily routine. If that’s the case for your family, you can look for titles in your local library that help your child learn about the environment and how they can make a difference.

Your librarian will be able to make some good recommendations if you’re not sure where to start.

Weekly or Monthly Green Commute Challenge

Is Your Family Up to the Challenge?

If you normally drive to care or school every day and the distance or public transport options allow it, your family could introduce a weekly or monthly ‘green commute’.

If the distances are realistic and you and your child(ren) are physically able, walk or cycle.

It might be that the distance doesn’t allow walking or cycling but you have a public transport option available. In this case you could use public transport instead of driving as your ‘challenge’.

This won’t be possible for everyone, depending on where you live and how far you are from the centre or your older child’s school.

But if any of these options are possible for your family, it could be a fun way for your child(ren) to learn about sustainable transport options and how they can help the environment.

We hope this article has sparked some ideas and inspiration for sustainability at home for your family!