Living sustainably

Sustainable living can help you create your own personal style and fill your personal world with things that you love rather than accepting the current mass-manufactured fashion. From the clothes you wear to the furniture you live with, sustainable shopping means you can benefit your pocket as well as the planet.

Clothes

Buy pre-loved clothes in charity shops and online and you can help reduce the 18.6 million tonnes of clothing sent to landfills or incinerated every year.

Learn how to give worn and outdated clothes a new lease of life by attending a craft workshop. Southsea Sustainable Textiles run free workshops where you can learn to patch over holes, sew on new buttons, upcycle fabric and much else besides, learning a life skill that could save you a fortune. You can get also help at the Portsmouth’s Repair Cafe.

Tech

Buy refurbished or remanufactured devices and save on money and waste. Check out B corporation Backmarket for a student discount! Repair Cafe Portsmouth and Landport PC Repair Shop can also help repair or recycle your malfunctioning or broken devices.

Books

Borrow books from the University Library and public libraries where you can, and buy second hand were you can’t!

• World of Books
• Oxfam Books
• Better World Books
• Wordery
• Hive

Groceries

Join our local Zero Waste Community
Shop for groceries in plastic-free shops where you can reuse your old bags and jars to buy just the amount you need.

Local plastic-free shops include:

• The Package Free Larder on Elm Grove
• Herbies on Albert Road
• Wild Thyme on Palmerston Road

Furniture

Buy pre-loved furniture that might otherwise end up in landfill and design your home around what you love, rather than what’s on sale at the time. Local second hand furniture stores include:

• DEBRA on Elm Grove
• BHF on Arundel Street
• Sue Ryder in The Pompey Centre

Freeing up space

When you want to get rid of things you no longer need, you have the opportunity to complete the cycle of sustainability by selling them second hand online, donating unwanted clothes them to textile banks or and just about anything to charity shops, or giving them away through Freegle or FreeCycle.

• Sell your old stuff online on Facebook Marketplace, Gumtree, Preloved or eBay.
• Give away things you no longer want on Freecycle or Freegle or to a charity shop.
• What other tips do you have for sustainable living?

Do you have any other tips for sustainable living? Let us know in the comments below!