Climate change and rapid overall environmental degradation are truths only few have the guts to deny. We’re dumping so much garbage into – without any solution for taking garbage out of – landfills. The Great Barrier Reef has just recently been declared dead. Every year, we reach new temperature peaks, with the heat becoming so unbearable that asphalt roads and public trash bins are melting in some parts of the world.

No single event catalysed this dystopia. Rather, it’s the culmination of several, seemingly small actions, habits, and shortcomings that lead to the sad reality we live in today. If you’re guilty of any of the following, it may be time to rethink some of your choices.

1. Using traditional light bulbs

A quick look at the data would tell you that if you aren’t using LED light bulbs, you’re leaving money on the table. To start, the average expected lifespan of an LED bulb is 5 times longer than a CFL bulb, and almost 50 times that of an incandescent bulb. An LED bulb takes about 10 watts for a total of 500 kwh over 50,000 hours – that’s 200 less than CFL and 2,500 less than incandescent. Incandescent and fluorescent bulbs aren’t only far behind in terms of energy efficiency, they also wind up costlier in the long run.

• Paying for non-renewable energy

Several energy companies – especially those in developed nations – have already began a steady pivot to sourcing energy from renewables like solar, wind, and geothermal. Those that haven’t contribute to the gaping hole in our ozone layer and the unprecedented multiplication of asthma cases. How so?

Non-renewable energy plants burn coal, oil, or use nuclear energy to heat water to a boil and produce steam, resulting in the release of huge amounts of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere. Whether your utility provider is running on renewable energy tends to be readily available information you could gather from either your utility bill or from phoning the company.

• Substandard design

How a building or space is designed largely contributes to its eco-friendliness rating. For example, having too many untinted or unobscured windows in a warm climate results expending more electricity just to manage the temperature. Likewise, a space with poor air circulation and low ceilings lined with high-conduction materials would also be quite warm. Architects and interior designers have developed techniques and design standards to match ecological demands. Failing to comply with these would be more than an inconvenience – it would be a failure.

• Using K-Cups

With the world and our lifestyles accelerating to new speeds, it’s no surprise that K-Cups became a hit just as quickly as they wind up as waste in trash bins. Their impact on both the market and the environment is so remarkable that, every year, enough k-cups are sold to circle the planet 10.5 times. Just in case it isn’t clear yet: that’s a lot of K-Cups. To top it off, they’re made of the kind of plastic that doesn’t end up being recycled. They’re a huge waste despite their petite size.

• Single-use items

The K-Cup is only one of many of its kind – single-use items. Despite the growing presence of reusables in the market, single-use items like plastic bags, paper cups, tissues, and the like continue to be the go-to for most. Whether it’s because of a culture that emphasises convenience, lack of foresight (like, yes, a reusable bag is a bit more expensive than plastic, but you’ll end up using it hundreds of times more), single-use has got to go. In their place, there are wiser alternatives like coffee tumblers, reusable eco bags, and mobile tablet – all of which you have way more creative freedom over.

• Impulsive purchases

Let’s run through the life cycle of a buzz item. A trend starts, people catch on, millions of it are produced, millions of it are bought, the trend dies, millions of it don’t get bought, then practically every one of them winds up in either the discount or rubbish bin. Such is the case with the rubber band bracelet and, soon, the fidget spinner.

The purchases you make that you won’t end up having use for or fun with in a month or so become an extra couple hundred tonnes of waste – resources that could have gone to the production of more important and sustainably relevant things. Your unthought-of purchases are as much a bane to the environment as they are to your wallet.

• Sticking to paper

The Earth is balding faster than a man past his prime with our forests and woodlands are steadily running out. Where are our trees going? They wind up as books, piles of documents, magazines, newspapers, flyers, posters, and photographs. Agreeably, these things can’t be classified into the items in number 6 of this article as these are all, in one way or another, significant. However important, their existence in the print format is decidedly not so.

Most new books are published in both the digital and print formats (the former tending to be a lot less expensive than the latter), periodicals now cater to digital subscriptions (again – cheaper than print), flyers and posters can be “handed out for free” as pictures on social media, and digital copies of pictures costly literally nothing to keep.

Long story short: paper doesn’t have much use beyond wiping out our trees and taking up space.

Deceivingly insignificant habits and small acts are ravaging our environment, and that’s a great thing. That means that the changes necessary to reverse the damage and recover are likewise minute. At the end of the day, it’s an accumulation of little things – choices, habits, fidget spinners – that make the world we live in.