Why Gardening Is The Best Way To Reduce Your Waste
When it comes to reducing your waste I think that there is one thing that stands out above all else and that is gardening. There are so many benefits to gardening and reducing your waste is one of them. Today I want to discuss some of the reasons why gardening is the best way to reduce your waste and how you can get started.
1. Food
Walking into your back garden or balcony garden is so much better for the environment for so many reasons. Growing food means your food isn't being transported long distances using up fossil fuels, you can control what goes into the growing process and avoid nasty chemicals that can pollute our waterways, growing food also reduces your consumption of plastic packaging and it also means you don't have to drive your car which also burns fossil fuels. Growing food is incredibly easy and you may even be surprised at what you can grow in even the smallest space. I myself grow in pots and containers in a small space and I have managed to grow carrots, potatoes, strawberries, chillies, tomatoes, lettuce, spinach, basil, parsley, chives, onions, zucchinis and even eggplants. The good thing about growing food is you don't even have to eat them raw or cooked in a meal, you can make jams, you can pickle them or you can dry them. Growing food gives you the flexibility to do whatever you want with the food.
2. Medicine
There are many plants that have medicinal properties to treat minor ailments like coughs, sore tummies, constipation, bug bites and sunburn. Common medicinal plants include but are not limited to things like turmeric, ginger, ginseng, garlic, rosemary, thyme, sage, dandelion, chamomile, lavender, aloe, marigolds and many more. Most of these plants can be eaten raw or added to your meals or can be sipped in a tea, while some like aloe can be rubbed on the skin to soothe things like sunburn. By growing medicinal plants at home you can reduce your use of fossil fuels, the manufacturing of synthetic medicines created in labs and reduce plastic waste created from pill packets and medicine bottles. I don't recommend you completely turn away from specially created medicines because most are safe to use and have been proven to work but there are a lot of plants you can grow at home that can help with minor things.
3. Cleaning Products
House cleaning products like oven and all-purpose cleaners can be created with things we grow at home like citrus fruit peels. Many cleaning products sold in our major retailers contain long lists of chemicals. Most of us probably don't even know what these chemicals are, I know I don't. These chemicals get flushed down our toilets, washed down our kitchen and laundry sinks and drained out of our washing machine. Most of the chemicals eventually end up polluting our waterways. We could of course buy environmentally friendly products but it is super easy to make these ourselves By creating natural cleaning products we can prevent these long-named chemicals from entering our rivers and oceans. Oven cleaners and all-purpose cleaners can be created easily by soaking citrus peels in white vinegar for up to three weeks.
4. Drinks
Growing food at home not only provides us with food but it also gives us the ability to create our own drinks. At home, we can grow fruits like apples, lemons, oranges and peaches and create our own fruit juices or cordials. These fruit trees require a bit of space but growing plants like chamomile, mint, lemongrass and ginger can all be done in small spaces and can then be used to create loose leaf tea. Growing fruit at home is a great alternative to buying pre-packaged plastic bottles of fruit juices and growing herbs at home to create teas is a great alternative to buying tea bags, many of which are made using plastics.
5. Composting
And finally, my favourite reason is composting because up to 40% of a households waste bin is made up of food waste. Food waste sent to landfill in our garbage bins is unable to break down properly and creates toxic methane gases more potent than car emissions. Any organic material can be composted and used to nourish your gardens. It doesn't matter whether you have a large plot or a couple of plants on an apartment balcony you can compost your food scraps and create healthy compost, liquid fertilisers and most importantly reduce your waste. There are so many different ways to compost, you can compost your food scraps with a worm farm, a bokashi bin, a hot compost bin or a cold compost bin. All methods of composting are slightly different but they all allow us to reduce our organic waste.Thanks for reading about why gardening is the best way to reduce your waste. I hope this has convinced you to start gardening if you haven't already. Let me know of any other reasons you think I may have missed, I would love to add them to this list. Until next time, get out there and grow something.