Eco-Friendly Accessories and Gadgets
We spend plenty of money on accessories in the course of our life.
However, most of those accessories can be quite harmful to our environment.
In this article, all kinds of eco-friendly alternatives to conventional accessories are given so that you can improve your ecological footprint and make your contribution for saving our planet.
16 environmentally-friendly accessories everyone should use
- Eco-friendly clothes
- Reusable bottles instead of plastic bottles
- Natural beauty products
- Use do-it-yourself-guide to make your home eco-friendly
- Wooden glasses
- Eco-friendly jewelry
- Use rechargeable batteries
- Smartphones which combine functionality with social responsibility
- Compostable smartphone cases
- Watches from renewable materials
- Solar-powered speakers
- Solar-powered smartphone charger
- Solar-powered fans
- (Portable) solar charging stations
- Environmentally-friendly handbags
- Use ebook-readers instead of paper-based books
Eco-friendly clothes
We spend plenty of money every year on clothes.
However, a big fraction of these clothes is produced under quite poor labor conditions.
Moreover, a big fraction is also produced out of synthetic materials like polyester that are quite harmful to our planet.
In order to improve your ecological footprint, make sure that you buy from companies that support fair labor so that poor people in third world countries get a fair wage and can provide for their families.
Moreover, try to buy clothes made out of natural materials like cotton instead of polyester in order to reduce plastic waste.
This is not only true for your trousers, t-shirts and sweaters, but also for hats, scarfs and other clothing accessories.
Reusable bottles instead of plastic bottles
Many people still use bottled water.
However, especially plastic bottled water, is quite harmful to our environment, since it implies the production of massive amounts of plastic waste.
Instead of using bottled water, try to rely on tap water instead.
There are many regions on our planet where the tap water quality is actually quite good and there is no need to buy bottled water at all.
If you live in those regions, you should avoid buying bottled water and use tap water instead.
If you live in regions with poor tap water quality, at least make sure that you buy glass bottled water so that you do not have to produce plenty of plastic waste.
An even better alternative to glass bottled water would be to use reusable water bottles made out of metal instead since it can also lower the amount of glass waste.
Natural beauty products
Plenty of money is spent on natural beauty products every day.
However, most of these products contain components that can be harmful to our environment.
Fortunately, also in the beauty industry, companies have become more aware that many customers want green alternatives to conventional beauty products.
Thus, there are many beauty products out there that rely on natural ingredients.
Using natural beauty products instead of conventional ones could not only improve your ecological footprint, but also benefit your skin since our skin is often quite sensitive and will often react better to natural beauty products compared to synthetic ones.
Use do-it-yourself-guide to make your home eco-friendly
There is a variety of things you can do to make your home more eco-friendly.
While many of these tasks are quite simple and do not require high levels of knowledge, others require a higher skill level.
For instance, if you want to install solar panels on your rooftop or if you want to install a natural pond in your garden, you might need some help in order to improve the end result.
Fortunately, there are some quite good DIY-guides out there that are perfect to help you with these big projects.
Spending a few dollars on those guides should be worth it, especially if the whole project has a volume of many thousand dollars.
Wooden glasses
There is even a good eco-friendly alternative to conventional glasses.
While spectacle frames are usually made out of synthetic materials, there are also glasses that use wood as natural material for spectacle frames.
Thus, you should consider buying one of those eco-friendly alternatives when it comes to buying new glasses.
However, make sure that the wood that is used for those glasses comes from sustainable sources and materials.
Bamboo would be perfect since it grows quite fast and is also entirely organic.
Eco-friendly jewelry
Even for the category of jewelry, there are quite good eco-friendly alternatives.
The mining of jewels often involves quite poor labor conditions.
Many people even die each year in gem mines due to erosions and other events.
Making things even worse, large areas of land have to be used for mining activities, which implies the destruction of habitats for several animals and plant species.
Thus, instead of supporting the conventional jewelry industry, you could buy jewelry made out of natural and sustainable materials.
There are plenty of nice necklaces and bracelets out there that have been made out of natural woods.
By supporting companies manufacturing these kinds of natural jewelry, you can improve your ecological footprint and also plenty of money at the same time.
Use rechargeable batteries
Batteries for single-use are still quite frequently used in our modern society.
However, they have many severe downsides.
First, the use of single-use batteries implies significant waste production, since those batteries have to be disposed of after just a single use.
Second, the use of those batteries also implies the depletion of natural resources, since many people do not recycle these batteries properly.
Third, the incorrect recycling of single-use batteries can also lead to significant pollution, since there are plenty of harmful substances in conventional batteries.
Thus, in order to improve your ecological footprint, it is crucial that you switch from conventional single use batteries to rechargeable batteries.
Since rechargeable batteries are available in almost every electronic store and also online, switching to rechargeable batteries should not be a big deal at all.
Smartphones which combine functionality with social responsibility
Even for smartphones, there are big differences when it comes to eco-friendliness and working conditions under which the smartphones are produced.
Some companies made it their mission to produce smartphones that only use fair labor instead of exploiting employees in poor third world countries.
By supporting those smartphone companies, you could take a stand against poor labor conditions.
However, make sure that these smartphones meet your requirements regarding functionality before you buy one of them.
Compostable smartphone cases
Many people do not know that there is actually a quite good alternative to conventional synthetic smartphone cases.
There are companies that produce compostable smartphone cases.
By using one of these cases, you can reduce your plastic waste production and therefore improve your ecological footprint.
Watches from renewable materials
While most of our watches are still made of plastic or metals, there are also watches that are mainly made out of natural renewable materials.
Thus, the next time that you buy a new watch, make sure to buy one from natural materials like wood.
Also make sure that you buy watches that are made out of wood from sustainable sources.
Fairtrade bamboo would be the ideal choice since bamboo grows quite fast and is fully organic at the same time.
Solar-powered speakers
If you like to listen to music, there is a quite cool gadget which makes your listening experience much greener.
Instead of conventional speakers, use solar-powered speakers instead!
These speakers get their energy directly from the sun and can therefore save you plenty of energy and money.
However, these speakers only work properly if the weather is quite good.
On cloudy and rainy days, you should still rely on conventional speakers.
Solar-powered smartphone charger
Also, for your smartphone charger, there is a good eco-friendly alternative out there!
Solar-powered smartphone chargers can be a good alternative to conventional chargers.
However, they are quite dependent on good weather.
Thus, if you have to charge your smartphone quite frequently, you may still rely on conventional chargers instead to ensure your energy supply.
Therefore, solar-powered smartphone chargers may be a good complement to conventional chargers, but it would not be a good idea to entirely rely on them.
Solar-powered fans
Solar-powered fans are a quite clever idea since in summer when it is quite hot, there are also many sunny days and these kinds of fans can produce enough energy to solely work from solar power.
Therefore, solar-powered fans are a great alternative to their conventional versions since they can save plenty of energy in the long run.
(Portable) solar charging stations
In general, solar charging of all sorts is a quite efficient way to improve your ecological footprint.
However, always keep in mind that these gadgets are weather-dependent and that you should have a conventional backup for rainy days.
Environmentally-friendly handbags
Many handbags are still made out of synthetic materials.
However, the use of synthetic materials implies the production of large amounts of plastic waste, which leads to several environmental problems.
Thus, instead of relying on firms that produce handbags made from synthetic materials, support companies who use organic materials.
However, also make sure that the organic materials have been produced with fair labor.
Also make sure that if you buy leather handbags, the animals haven’t been treated poorly.
You can usually see if these criteria are met by looking out for certain labels regarding fair labor and animal welfare.
Use ebook-readers instead of paper-based books
In our current times, almost every book is available in electronic version.
Thus, there should be no real need to use paper books anymore.
By using ebook-readers instead of conventional books, you could save significant amounts of paper waste and therefore reduce the deforestation issue.
Conclusion
There are many gadgets for different parts of our daily life that could significantly improve our ecological footprint.
However, many people still rely on conventional accessories instead of switching to more eco-friendly ones.
Thus, it is quite important that everyone of us, including you, makes his or her contribution and buy eco-friendly gadgets instead of conventional ones in order to ensure a livable future for the next generations.
About the author
My name is Andreas and my mission is to educate people of all ages about our environmental problems and how everyone can make a contribution to mitigate these issues.
As I went to university and got my Master’s degree in Economics, I did plenty of research in the field of Development Economics.
After finishing university, I traveled around the world. From this time on, I wanted to make a contribution to ensure a livable future for the next generations in every part of our beautiful planet.
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