Social media is the perfect format for sharing tips—easy-to-digest and visually vibrant advice for every quandry you can conceive of. As you might expect, we’re always keeping an eye out for the latest eco-living tips, and we noticed there’s a growing number of Instagram accounts dedicated to sharing actions you can take against the current global crises (climate, environment, waste, etc.).
Curious about this trend, we reached out to Easy Eco Tips, an Instagram account with 360k+ followers. The London-based team of two kindly answered a couple of questions for us.
What triggered this project?
It started last summer [2018]. We were on holiday in Croatia, visiting beautiful beaches—and we were struck by the amount of waste dumped in these amazing natural places. We were already environmentally conscious, but that was the first time we thought we have to do something to raise awareness, and help people see how easy it is to be more eco-friendly.
Do you have any strategy for selecting tips?
No strategy at all! The tips are just ideas from our daily life and things we do. We also receive a lot of great suggestions from friends, family and followers. When people ask how they can help us, we ask them to share ideas with us! We’re also reading a lot on environmental topics in the news so we get ideas and themes from there too.
How has the feedback from followers been?
In the beginning, we were just posting our ideas, thinking we would mainly reach our friends and family. But at some point, we started seeing that our posts were being shared and reposted, and the comments were really supportive. So the support has always been there, and we thank everyone for sharing our posts and helping us reach as many people through Instagram as possible.
What we have noticed is that our followers enjoy reading good news about the planet—we usually only hear the bad headlines on the news, and that can really affect morale. So let’s share positive news and ideas about how to act to improve the situation: there are lots of people out there fighting to make a change, and it’s encouraging for people to see they’re not alone.
What are your ten most popular tips?
Going off numbers alone, our most popular posts are:
• Tip: Make your own eco-friendly confetti with fallen leaves ➡️
• Did you know? Students in the Philippines must plant 10 trees to graduate
• Tip: Purify the air in your home with these indoor plants ⬇️
• Bad news: France recorded its all-time highest temperature
• Did you know? Today is Earth Overshoot Day 2019
• Did you know? Students go on strike worldwide against climate change
• Which? Reusable bottle vs. Plastic bottle
• Tip: Make your own eco-friendly mosquito repellent ➡️
• Tip: Use reef safe sunscreen and protect the ocean
• Did you know? You might suffer from eco anxiety
How did you manage to reach 300k+ followers in less than a year?
There is no secret formula. It’s hard to say for sure how it happened because it’s hard to believe even for us. But I think if you ask (almost) anyone randomly in the street: “Do you think climate change is an important topic and the planet is in danger?”, 99% of people will answer YES.
But if you ask them: “What have you changed in your life to reduce your footprint?”, not everyone knows what they could do, or where to start.
So I think people share our posts because it’s about taking easy but meaningful action instead of just waiting to see what happens—it’s empowering.
What are your favourite books and films about environmental issues?
Actually, because we read about the topic literally all the time to find ideas for posts, when it comes to books and films we make sure to avoid the topic and just relax! It’s good to disconnect and stop worrying from time to time, as it can get overwhelming.
Any more tips on recovering from burnout?
We’ve posted before about eco-anxiety: the more you get into environmental activism, the more you become conscious of all the things that are going wrong in the world. Sometimes it’s really overwhelming to see the amount of work that’s left to do. Our advice is to take a step back, relax, and know that you can’t change the world on your own, and you’re not alone. Every little effort is useful and you should take the time to celebrate these efforts. Nobody is perfect, so don’t worry, try your best.
However, our message to brands, companies and governments would be to wake up and speed up the change. Too many just do it for their image—it’s time they took it seriously.
Who do you turn to for inspiration in terms of environmental issues, ethics, and activism?
Instagram has been a great source of inspiration. There are some amazing accounts that deal with environmental issues from many different angles: some focus on the fashion aspect, others on travel, on parenthood, on food. It’s just so nice to see all these people all over the world contributing to the cause.
One account we discovered recently and that makes us laugh a lot is @vegan_sarcasm. Veganism can be a sensitive topic, but these guys deal with it in a really funny way. Vegan or not, go have a look, it’s hilarious.
Favourite quote?
We actually think Nike’s slogan would be a very good one for us: just do it. We’re all about that: stop waiting for others to act, let’s all take action. Maybe we should steal it!
What’s next for Easy Eco Tips?
We’re very excited, as we’ve been working really hard on our new blog. We hope to launch it very soon with some cool content of our own and guest posts from amazing bloggers. We hope to get a guest post from ethical.net too!
