I wrote a while back on enjoying hanging my clothes to dry out doors. I also combine my daily excersize (walking 4 miles) with errands such as lite shopping, going to the bank, the library, and the post office to reduce my carbon foot print. I separate my trash before I put it out, and am very happy to find others who want the cash will collect my recyclables and take them away. I am wondering what some of you other ladies are doing along these lines that you find satisfying. Are you having any fun finding ways to reduce, reuse, or recycle?
i have been going green for a couple years, its a long hard lifestyle change, it was easier in santa barbara than it is in orange county
D., You're an inspiration when it comes to 'going green'! As for me, I help my mom compost. She gardens a lot and has an amazing assortment of flowers, trees, fruits and veggies! I save all of my eggshells, coffee grinds, and veggies/fruit peelings. She puts it in a compost pit in the backyard. In return, I get some of the fruits and veggies from her yard. Completely organic! I try to buy the rest of our produce at farmers markets and try to go organic as much as possible.
I also have high efficiency appliances. We've replaced all of our lightbulbs. We borrow library books and movies vs. buying them. I'm in the process of switching our bills to electronic and I pay them all electronically now, too. My friends and I give our children's outgrown clothes to the next friend with a younger child for them to wear. This goes for toys, too.
I am in the market for a hybrid SUV or minivan. The cars available out there just won't fit all of us. There isn't a big selection out there yet. So I try to combine all my errands in one trip (not as good as walking but I think I'm going to commit to trying that more).
My husband and I have a business, and for our business, we operate from home, so zero commute! We only use 100% recycled paper. We send back our used toner cartridges. We try to print double sided as much as possible. We try to scan and email documents vs. faxing (but some companies we service just can't seem to handle doing that). Old documents that don't need to be shredded becomes our kids' scratch paper. Then gets recycled again.
I'm looking forward to reading what everyone else is doing! I'm sure we'll all read some tips or ideas that we haven't thought of before!
yes, I feel really good saving and trying to make the world a better place ,I also excersize while shopping and cleaning so I save gas and money and we have 2 kinds of trash trucks for recycle and not. In Brazil the cars run with acohol from sugar cane ,I would love to see this in here . In some cities in north brazil peoplpe make biogaz from organic trash with a machine called Biodigestor which produzes enought energy to run the house .
Isn't it so great!?
Hi D.,
I think it is awesome what you are doing. The one thing we did was to start composting. We have a composter in our back yard and all our kitchen scraps, yard trimming and leaves go in there. The model we have collects the liquid in a container at the bottom so you get liquid fertilizer (used 10 to 1 ratio) and it is enclosed to keep the critters out. We use the compost when planging new plants or as a top dressing for existing plants. We find we send less trash when we are filling up then when we are waiting for it to finish the process.
The other thing I do is use the canvas bags for shopping instead of paper or plastic. If I do collect the paper or plastic I save them and return them to the grocery store for recycling next time I go.
Good luck,
G.
