Blog Action Day
Monday, October 15, 2007
Today is Blog Action Day. How cool is it that everyone is getting involved and doing little things to help save our world? In honor of Blog Action Day, I'm simply going to list the little things that we've done in the past couple of years to help make our home and our lives greener by the day. Perhaps there are one or two easy things on here that you can do to help make your life a little more green:
1. Buy a Prius. Matt got 432 miles on his last tank of gas. Not to mention the fact that it's a great ride, it's roomy and comfortable, and the GPS system gets us where we need to go every time. If you are in the market to buy a new car, buy a hybrid.
2. Recycle. I mean, I know this is sooooooo obvious, but I also know that when we lived in our old apartment building, they didn't recycle so we didn't recycle. This only lasted a few months before we realized how irresponsible we were being. It might take a little more work to bring your newspapers someplace, but don't you feel great after? If you need more info on recycling, click here. At the top, you can enter your zip code and it will give you personalized info on your area.
3. Change your light bulbs to a CFL version. They sell them at Whole Foods (and I'm sure everywhere now.) If you want to understand why, read this article from Fast Company on how it only takes 1 lightbulb to change the world.
4. Buy recycled toilet paper and paper towels - and better yet, buy dishtowels and use those recycled paper towels sparingly.
5. Start using cloth napkins. Anthroplogie and Target have adorable ones that are inexpensive.
6. Be an efficient laundress. Wash your laundry in cold water only. Wanna understand why? Check out my favorite eco-friendly tip site, Ideal Bite. Also, don't do one or two pieces of laundry unless it's an emergency (like a wine spill or lipstick stain) and you must get it out immediately. Wash full loads of laundry. Clean your lint filter every time you use your dryer - it will dry your clothes way more efficiently. Wash your clothes less. No, this doesn't make you dirty - it makes you smart. Unless you TRULY get dirt on your clothes, you don't need to wash them every time. And you'll be happy because not only will you be helping the environment, your clothes will last longer as well.
7. Use environmentally friendly cleaning products. There's a whole slew of them - from Method, to Ecover, to Seventh Generation. The only thing I've yet to find is a great dishwasher detergent (for the actual dishwasher...) Any suggestions?
8. Buy local and organic. It may cost a few bucks more (although if you shop at your local farmer's market it's definitely cheaper than even non-organic produce at the supermarket) but it's worth it for taste, for your body, AND for the environment.
9. Stop drinking bottled water. Yeah, I know you recycle it, but it's still better for the environment if we don't use those plastic bottles to begin with. Get a cooler or better yet, get a filter that attaches to your sink. You'll save money and the world.
10. Unplug. It's actually even easier than that...I know it's a pain in the neck to have to plug that light in every time you want to use it. But it drains a lot of energy even when it's not on. We just bought power strips and put them in convenient places with a whole bunch of plugs in them. Now we just flip them off, and when we need to use them, we flip the switch and turn on the power. And I have to admit, I haven't done it with every socket in my house. I did it with the things we don't use as often. But it still helps.
11. Get your office in shape. Last week, I got adamant about getting rid of our styrofoam cups in the kitchen. My co-worker, Sabrina, made us get a water cooler at work instead of the hundreds of water bottles that we were going through. We now recycle all of our media with Green Disk. I still think we go through far too much paper, but that will take a conscious effort on each individuals part. And for now, I'm recycling my scripts to my heart content. I'm certain I haven't even brushed the tip of the iceberg (that's not the expression - is it?) on this one - but I'm determined to learn more!!
12. Keep your tires full. If your tires are full, your car works more efficiently on less gas. That's an easy one.
13. Stop using paper AND plastic. Bring your own bags with you to the grocery store. There's no reason to use up valuable earth supplies when you can just keep old plastic bags in your car or cloth totes.
Things on my radar to start doing in the next few weeks:
1. Switch to a Green Power Program. If you're an Angeleno, click here. For a few more bucks, you can pay to get your power from a green source - the sun, the wind, and water to name a few. Even if you can't afford to convert 100% of your power to green, you can still opt for 20% and pay about $6 more a month. A little goes a long way. If you live in NYC or anywhere else, click here. They'll let you know if you can purchase green power in your state.
2. Stop using plastic wrap and plastic baggies and plastic storage containers. Glad made it so easy for us to keep our food in those disposable containers. But they also contributed to the ruin of our planet in the process. Switch to glass or ceramic and you can go straight from the fridge to the oven or microwave. Ideal Bite has some great suggestions again: these glass storage containers don't have an ounce of plastic anywhere. You can wash all those pickle jar and pasta sauce jars and re-use those as well. Plastic can actually get into your food...yup - just by sitting there in the fridge.
3. Stop getting junk mail. I want to sign up for one of the terrific programs that will stop them from sending me those things that I just put in the trash anyhow. Go to Direct Mail or Green Dimes.
4. Get more conscious. Every day I throw away little slips of paper by mistake. I leave things on that I shouldn't. I flip on the heat rather than putting on an extra layer. All easy to do and free to fix. I want to get better at all these things.
5. And I'm thinking really big here when I say that one day, I'd love to have a completely eco-friendly, solar-powered home.
What's your favorite way to help the earth? I'd love to hear what you guys are doing to go green so I can start doing some of them myself!!
Posted byMeesh-elle my Belle at 11:31 AM
Labels: conscious living
GreenDimes here,
Hey, thanks for the mention. Great blogging day!
Hey sis! You're awesome! Remember when I used to get mad when people would leave the water running while brushing their teeth? I think you've surpassed me by miles my earth friendly girl! Thank you for reminding me to stay concious of the little things I can do.
you're really cool. can i forward this to a bajllion friends!?
you inspired me to approach my boss about water bottles...we're making the switch to a big cooler within the next month! good post! thanks :)