When you’re planning a house move, the last thing on your mind is the future of the planet! However, this place is our only home and we should all take as many opportunities as possible to do our bit. You can even move house in an environmentally-friendly manner if you follow these tips.
Use up as much of your food stocks as possible
The more of your dried goods you eat up, the less you’ll be carrying to your new home. Take a quick look through your cupboards to see what sorts of dried herbs, dried pulses, unopened jars of sauces, olives and so on you have and try some experimental recipes. You’ll be saving at least one box worth of cargo and saving some money as well.
Donate anything you don’t want or use anymore to charity
There’s nothing like a house move to make you sort through loads of things you’d forgotten you owned! Old sporting equipment, furniture you know won’t fit into the new place, old clothes, books, DVDs… If it’s not going to your new home, it can still go to a good home, so offer larger items up for collection and drop smaller things off at your local charity shop.
Re-use your available resources
Instead of buying packing supplies from your removal company, collect old newspapers and use them to wrap up crockery and other delicate items. You can also use your sheets, blankets and towels instead of buying bubble wrap.
Making sure you pack carefully and tactically means that your possessions aren’t just safer, but you’re also using your boxes fully. Try to think of packing a box as a game of 3D Tetris so that you get the most out of each one. Speaking of boxes, lots of people prefer to pass on their used removals boxes to the next person, so try to source yours second (or third) hand and pass them on once more when you’re done.
Use eco-conscious cleaning products
Moving house involves a lot of cleaning – at both ends – so it helps to have a range of eco-conscious cleaning products to hand. There are lots of different products out there that fit the bill and they’re not as expensive as they used to be, so don’t worry. You could also use old towels and even old clothes as cleaning cloths before sending them to the recycling centre.
Choose an eco-friendly removals company
Many removers are adopting environmentally-friendly practices now, whether it’s putting biofuel into their lorries, using recycled plastic crates or planting a tree for each job, so check out the green credentials of the companies you look at.
