Earlier this week, Julia wrote a great Mama Loves post. Since our little corner of the blogosphere is mentioned in her post, I thought I'd share a bit of what we do around the Hollow that is environmentally friendly. Please note that we are by no means entirely environmentally friendly! I drive a full size SUV (which I LOVE), have contributed more than our fair share of disposable diapers to our local landfill (cloth diapering wasn't for us) as well as committed many, many, many other non-green crimes. But I'm a firm believer that every little bit counts and I want to "grow" environmentally aware children.
- Receive and pay bills electronically
- Recycle--For our rural community, this means sorting your own recyclables into different categories and then delivering said recyclables to the closest recycling center, but we haul our non-recyclable trash to the same location, so what's a few more steps???
- Wash laundry in cold water
- Hang laundry to dry
- Buy used (books, clothing, shoes, home decor, etc.)--I'm always amazed at what I find in our local thrift stores and at our local flea market!
- Reusable water bottles
- Reusable shopping bags--We LOVE our Chico bags!
- Re-purpose--It doesn't have to be anything extremely complicated, like collecting the hair you shed to weave into yarn and then knit socks. (OK...I'd love to see a tutorial on this, but seriously doubt I'd ever do it!) Laundry lint stuffed into empty toilet paper rolls and empty paper towel rolls works well as a fire starter. Empty wine bottles make great seasonal decorations and large old glass bottles can become table lamps. Our laundry room, pantry, attic and basement are dumping grounds for empty egg cartons, baby food jars, cardboard boxes, old clothing, old towels and many other items I simply can't throw away or recycle because I intend to re-purpose each into something else we can use!
- Purchase concentrated, all-natural cleaners--Mixing your own cleaning products is super simple!
- Use a programmable thermostat
And then, of course, we have our "dream green list":
- Purchase a diesel vehicle to replace Jonathan's commuter vehicle and start making our own biodegradable diesel fuel using oil collected from local restaurants
- Construct a rain barrel or two
- Install solar panels and/or a geothermal heating/cooling system
- Build an animal-proof composter
- Continue landscaping with native plants
No comments:
Post a Comment