Last updated on March 19th, 2024 at 05:06 pm
How Can Kids Help the Environment?
Thinking about the reality of climate change and other environmental issues can often leave us feeling powerless and uncertain. Undoubtedly, it’s the Government’s and large corporations’ responsibility to reduce and counter the impact of emissions.
However, it’s still helpful and important to be equipped with some practical ideas on ways to protect the environment and help kids learn about them too.
Here are 30 ways your family can help the environment:
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How Can Kids Help The Environment: Be Green At Home
1. Agree as a family to switch off lights when you’re not in the room to conserve energy. Kids can add stickers to light switches or make posters to remind adults they also need to remember to flick those switches. Make a move to energy-efficient LED light bulbs too – they use 80% less electricity and one of the best ways to take care of the environment.
2. Turn your thermostat down by one degree. You’ll barely notice the difference, but for each degree you turn your thermostat down, your heating costs will be cut by 10%. Also, make sure you move furniture away from radiators to allow heat to flow more easily.
3. Think about installing a smart meter. A smart meter will show your family how much energy you’re using in pounds and pence. It’ll help you identify where you’re using the most energy, so you can think about where to make changes. Read more and sign up here.
4. Try and have shorter showers. While it’s lovely to stand under that hot water, once you’re clean, hop out. Add a solid shampoo bar to your shower shelf too – no plastic!
✅ Purchase solid shampoo bars HERE
5. Turn off the tap while brushing your teeth. A tiny change, but, amazingly, it’ll save thousands of gallons of water each year – one of the easiest ways to conserve the environment.
6. Unplug equipment such as toasters and gaming consoles when not in use (if still plugged in, they can continue to use electricity).
7. Use beeswax wraps instead of clingfilm or tin foil for your leftovers. They’ll save you money in the long run, as well as helping the environment.
8. Walk, cycle or use public transport where possible or car share to activities or school if you can. This will lower your carbon footprint and is one of the best ways to keep the environment clean.
9. Eat less red meat to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases such as methane, CO2 and nitrous oxide released into the environment. If your family is used to eating lots of meat, try starting with ‘Meat Free Monday’. Check out these recipes on the Meat Free Mondays website for some ideas.
How Can We Help The Environment: In The Garden And Outdoors
10. Create a wildlife garden. Install a pond, if you can (a great summer holiday project!), to provide a habitat for frogs, newts and insects such as damselflies and dragonflies whose habitats are continuing to shrink and fragment.
Many plants help animals and insects in the wild by providing food and shelter. Planting flowering (pollinator) plants are particularly good for bees, birds, butterflies and other insects. These plants include lavender, heather, cornflowers, cosmos, foxglove, honeysuckle, poppies, sunflowers, evening primrose, dahlia, wallflowers, and marigolds.
Seed bombs are great fun for kids:
✅ Purchase wildflower seed mixes HERE
11. Build a compost out of old food scraps. Composting some of your food and paper waste is a good way of reducing the amount of rubbish that goes into landfill. It’ll also produce nutrient-rich soil for your garden. The Eden Project shows you how to make a compost in this article.
12. Create a vegetable patch if you have a garden (even a small one should be able to accommodate some grow bags or planters), or else you could use your windowsill or patio to grow smaller vegetables such as tomato plants. If you don’t have a garden and would like to grow your own veg, look into an allotment share. If you’re based in the UK, you can apply for an allotment here.
Remember, gardening is also great for your mental health!
✅ Purchase Vegetable Garden Starter Kits HERE
13. Make a bird feeder to support birdlife in your garden and plant bee-friendly flowers to encourage the bee population. We need them if we want to keep nutritious crops such as fruit, nuts and vegetables in our diets.
✅ Purchase bird feeder making kits HERE
14. Make your own plant pots. Paint and drill a hole in old tin cans and use these to plant seeds in (juice cartons also work).
15. Buy some eco-friendly Sprout pencils. Once you’re left with a well-used, shorter pencil you can plant it and see what grows! A great gift.
✅ Purchase Sprout Pencils HERE
16. Make sure you take all your rubbish home with you if you have a picnic outdoors. If you’re feeling generous, any other rubbish you see in your vicinity.
17. Travel in a more environmentally-friendly way. Make your travel plans as a family and have discussions about how to travel more sustainably. Off-setting your travel is one option (see my article on this here). Or you might want to consider holidays closer to home and travelling by car or train.
Read my articles: How To Be A Conscious Traveller for environmentally friendly travel ideas.
Ways To Help The Environment: Re-Using And Re-Cycling
18. Avoid disposables and recycle, using biodegradable products where possible. Nearly all supermarkets in the UK will now allow you to bring your own containers for use at their meat, fish, cheese and deli counters.
Tesco is also trialling a zero-waste scheme (in conjunction with reusable packaging platform Loop). You can purchase certain items in recyclable packaging which, once finished with, you return to the store.
Get kids involved in thinking of ways to reduce their plastic waste. For example, while shopping, you could encourage them to help you find foods with the least plastic packaging such as loose vegetables rather than vegetables in bags.
19. Buy clothes second-hand or use a rental service for children’s clothes such as The Little Loop. You can borrow clothes for as long you need them and return them when your kids have grown out of them, or you fancy a change.
20. Buy some litter pickers and pick up litter in your local community. You could even arrange to do this for charity (perhaps an environmental one such as Greenpeace or Friends of the Earth). Kids will have good fun doing this, and they’ll be protecting animals’ natural habitats while also ensuring your local area looks nicer!
✅ Purchase Litter pickers HERE
21. Strive to buy less. 350,000 tonnes of clothes end up in landfill in the UK each year. Take clothes which aren’t in a fit state to go to the charity shop to a textile recycling bank. Search here to find your local one.
22. Use stainless steel, glass or, the newcomer on the block, bamboo reusable water bottles – reusing plastic water bottles isn’t a good idea as harmful chemicals leach into the water you’ll be drinking.
✅ Purchase reusable water bottles HERE
23. Avoid plastic straws to protect marine life – use paper or metal instead. Cool reusable drinking straws make great gifts or stocking fillers too.
✅ Purchase reusable drinking straws HERE
Ways To Save The Environment: Play-Time And Learning
24. Buy Eco-friendly toys and books on the environment for kids as gifts. Check out this John Lewis article on the best sustainable gifts for kids.
✅ Purchase Sustainable Toys HERE
✅ Purchase Books on the Environment HERE
The other thing you could do is purchase experiences as gifts, rather than objects. Animal Experience Days make great gifts for animal lovers.
25. Shop consciously if buying new clothes and use companies you feel confident are working fairly and sustainably. Try Frugi for kids and Baukjen for women’s clothing. They’re two companies that help the environment.
26. Add an iron-on character patch if an item of clothing has a tear, hole or stain on it, rather than throwing it away and adding to landfill. How about one of these?
✅ Purchase Iron-On Patches HERE
27. Encourage kids to use both sides of a piece of paper; keep a stack of already-used-on-one-side paper for kids to use for drawing or for adults to make notes on.
28. Use items such as toilet rolls or bottle tops for art projects. There are some great ideas for environment activities for kids here.
29. Join a toy collective or rent toys, rather than buying. A great, boredom-saving concept as you can send back toys you don’t enjoy so much (receiving new ones instead) and keep the ones you do for longer. Whirli is a good option.
30. Join the local library or swap books with friends. Donate books you’ve read – schools and nurseries will frequently take them and you’ll find there are often book hub schemes locally.
For great ideas on gifts for the socially and environmentally conscious child, click here.
How Can I Help the Environment: The Verdict
How Can Kids Help the Environment: I hope we’ve helped you consider some simple and practical ways of caring for the environment. My advice would be to start small, so it doesn’t feel overwhelming or as if you’re making too many drastic changes at once. Then, build on what you’re doing and add a couple of more things you can do to help the environment to the list. Discuss these ideas to help the environment as a family and decide which ones you’ll act on first. Remember, every action helps!
[…] close to your heart, take a look at two of my other articles, which are in a similar vein: ‘30 Ways Your Family Can Help The Environment‘ and ‘The Top 10 Books To Help Kids Think About The World Around […]