How To Use Natural Resources More Responsibly

Our natural world is precious. Far from us owning the Earth, we owe the Earth – and we should be protecting it. However, the most eco-friendly option isn’t always the cheapest, which has resulted in years of commercial gain at the planet’s expense.

Fortunately, there is now a drive to raise awareness about sustainability, and the impact we have on the natural environment. However, there is still a long way to go, and no perfect solutions. So how can we be sure we’re using natural resources more responsibly?

Consider How We Extract Resources

The first step to using natural resources responsibly is to consider how they’re extracted in the first place. When we choose to take and use a resource, it is important to do so by disturbing the surrounding environment as little as possible. It’s not just about the resource itself, but rather the whole ecosystem it’s taken from. For instance, think of one single tree. We know that trees are reducing the amount of carbon on our planet but they are also home to various living creatures.

Learn more about how trees help us and why we love them!

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Only Use What We Actually Need

Natural resources are not infinite, despite what some people may think. The Earth doesn’t just keep producing more and more to meet our demands. In fact, there’s an Earth Overshoot Day that shows when we’ve used up more resources than the biosphere can regenerate each year. In 2023, this date fell on August 2nd – nowhere near the end of the year…

We can do our part and use natural resources more responsibly by only using what we actually need. By thinking about natural resources as something precious, we can become more conscious consumers. This goes for non-tangible things like electricity too – even if you use renewable resources like solar or wind, it’s still good to cut your usage where you can, to leave enough for others!

Practice Conscious Consumerism: Reuse and Repair What We Can

Once someone extracts a natural resource, there’s no putting it back into the Earth. So, it is important that we get the maximum benefit from that unit of resource that we’ve extracted, to make it worth the cost.

Instead, why not make sure that you’re reusing and repairing items you already own before you buy something new? Or if it can’t be repaired, ensure that you’re disposing of it responsibly so that it can be recycled. For example, a lot of technology items linger in drawers and cupboards, but they could be taken apart and the valuable metals inside used to produce new phones, rather than even more lithium having to be mined.

Learn more about how to practice conscious consumerism

Think About the Bigger Picture

When it comes to natural resources, it can be easy to think about the end product in your hand, or the supply in your home, rather than the environmental cost it took to get the resource to you. By thinking about the bigger picture and doing what we can to reduce consumption, we can help ensure the planet is here to enjoy for many years to come.