How to Live a More Sustainable Life: Maybe We Already Know How
- Home
- Blogs
Sustainability can sometimes sound like a lifestyle reserved for people who buy everything organic, carry bamboo toothbrushes and live in homes filled with indoor plants. But maybe sustainable living is much simpler than that. Many of the things we now call “sustainable choices” were once just everyday habits.
Walking instead of taking a cab, carrying a water bottle on a long journey, reusing containers, saving old clothes, buying vegetables from the local vendor, and growing plants at home. We did many of these things without calling them sustainable.
So, what does living sustainably really look like?
Start with how you move
If a destination is a short walk away, could you walk instead of taking a cab? It may seem like a small decision, but small decisions repeated every day can add up. Walking short distances means fewer vehicle emissions, less fuel consumption and, quite simply, a healthier relationship with the city around us.
In Mumbai, public transport has always been a significant part of everyday life. Thousands of Mumbaikars take the local train, BEST buses and other forms of public transport every day, not necessarily because they are consciously making an environmental choice, but because it is practical and accessible.
Sustainable living does not always have to begin with a grand environmental decision. Sometimes, it begins with choosing what is already available to us.
Carry your own bottle
Remember when travelling by train meant packing food and carrying a bottle of water from home? For many of us, carrying our own bottle was simply part of preparing for a journey. Somewhere along the way, single-use PET bottles became an easier alternative. Carrying a reusable bottle is one small way of bringing back an old habit while reducing the number of single-use plastic bottles we consume.
Do I really need to buy another bottle, or can I refill the one I already have?
Reuse before you replace
Do you remember how an empty chocolate container became a storage box for grains? Takeaway containers being washed and reused. Old jars finding a new purpose in the kitchen. Before the culture of convenience became so deeply embedded in our lives, reusing things was normal.
The pandemic changed many of our everyday habits, particularly around packaging and hygiene. As food delivery and online shopping became a larger part of our lives, so did layers of packaging. Today, even something as simple as ordering vegetables online can come with multiple layers of plastic packaging.
This doesn’t mean convenience is inherently wrong. But it does mean we can be more conscious about the choices we make.
Could we buy from the local vegetable vendor? Could we carry a reusable bag? Could we choose products with less packaging when we have the option?
Let your neighbourhood grow
Planting a tree may not feel like an immediate solution to the environmental challenges around us, but green spaces play an important role in making cities more liveable. Trees provide shade, support biodiversity, help regulate local temperatures and contribute to healthier urban environments.
You don’t necessarily need a large garden to participate. A plant on your balcony, a tree planted in your society, or helping maintain a neighbourhood green space can all be small ways of bringing more nature into our everyday surroundings.
Compost your wet waste
A significant part of what leaves our kitchens every day is biodegradable, such as fruit and vegetable peels, food scraps and other wet waste, which can often be composted instead of being sent to a landfill. Home composting may sound complicated at first, but once you understand the basics, it can become a simple part of your routine. And the compost can eventually return to the soil and nourish plants.
Instead of thinking of food waste as something that simply needs to disappear, we can begin seeing it as a resource that can return to the earth.
Repeat your clothes
Sustainable fashion means buying clothes made from sustainable fabrics. It simply means wearing what you already own. Repeating outfits, repairing clothes, altering old pieces or finding new ways to style them can reduce the pressure to constantly buy something new. And when clothes have genuinely reached the end of their usable life, they don’t necessarily have to end up in a landfill.
At Project Mumbai’s Kaapad cloth collection drives, old clothes, including those that are torn or no longer wearable, can be collected for recycling and reuse. Depending on their condition, clothes can find a second home or be directed towards recycling and upcycling processes.
Because the most sustainable piece of clothing is often the one already sitting in your wardrobe.
Volunteer with us
Sustainability is not about having a list of things we should stop doing. But the things we can do. Participating in a beach clean-up, volunteering for an environmental initiative, helping your housing society segregate waste or simply encouraging a friend to carry a reusable bottle can turn individual choices into collective action.
At Project Mumbai’s Jallosh beach Cleanup create opportunities for people to come together, contribute their time and take responsibility for the spaces we share.
Because when more people participate, sustainability stops being an individual lifestyle choice and becomes a community habit.
Sustainability doesn't have to be perfect
Perhaps the biggest misconception about sustainable living is that we have to change everything at once. But maybe we don’t. You could start with one thing.
Carry a bottle.
Walk when you can.
Carry a reusable bag.
Reuse a container.
Compost your wet waste.
Repeat your clothes.
Volunteer once.
Our grandparents and parents may not have used words like carbon footprint, circular economy or sustainable lifestyle. But many of the habits they followed were rooted in using less, wasting less and making things last longer.
At Project Mumbai, we believe that when everyday choices become collective action, our cities and the planet can become better places to live.
