Green and Clean: Eco-Friendly Tips for Decluttering Your Home

The drive to create a clean, organized living space can often result in significant waste. Fortunately, decluttering your home doesn’t have to mean contributing to landfill overload. This article from Northern Lights Staging and Design aims to give you a roadmap for making eco-conscious choices as you clean up, declutter, and reorganize. In doing so, you can contribute to environmental sustainability while enjoying the benefits of the positive energy of a more organized and harmonious home.

Repair to Save Money

Before tossing out that broken chair or malfunctioning appliance, consider repair as a first option. Repairing an item saves you money and reduces the demand for new products, thereby saving resources. Repair cafes, online tutorials, and local repair shops can often breathe new life into items you’d otherwise discard. By choosing to fix rather than replace, you contribute to a culture of repair that counters our throwaway society.

Say No to Single-Use Items

The next time you’re tempted to buy disposable razors, plastic cutlery, or single-use cleaning wipes, pause and consider the environmental impact. Business Insider notes that single-use items contribute massively to pollution and waste. Instead, opt for reusable alternatives like metal razors, bamboo cutlery, and washable cloth wipes. By making this shift, you are decluttering sustainably and fostering long-term habits that will keep your home—and the planet—clean.

Choose Reusable

Storing food in single-use plastic containers is bad for the environment and your home’s organization. Reusable containers made of glass or BPA-free plastic are better choices. They are more durable, better for your health, and far less wasteful. In addition, they stack neatly, making your kitchen or pantry look cleaner and more organized.

Say Goodbye to Paper Clutter

With the advent of mobile scanner apps, you can convert your physical documents into digital formats quickly. By digitizing paperwork, you save trees and reduce clutter, leading to a more organized living space. This conversion is a win-win: you’re both preserving memories or essential information and reducing your ecological footprint. Making this change can be as simple as scanning your documents and properly recycling the originals.

The negative effects of clutter are numerous. Among them are negative energy, stress and a decline in cognitive function and decreased ability to focus. Gone unchecked for too long, clutter can create a sense of chaos that negatively affects mental well-being.

You can apply paperless principles in all aspects of life. Workplaces can also go paperless, and with online education opportunities, you can even engage in lifelong learning.  Maybe you want to learn more about the psychology surrounding clutter and exploring the complexities of the human mind inspires you! Check out your options for getting a degree in psychology at a school that is accredited and affordable.