I recently finished reading “It’s Easy Being Green.” In it are a number of recommendations on what you can do to help the environment, a day at a time. So I’ve listed the items I want to focus on here so I can add them to my eco-wishlist.
- Take short showers.
- Turn the faucet off while shaving and brushing your teeth.
- Toss trash in the wastebasket, not the toilet.
- Take care of your vinyl shower curtain.
- Use water-based paints.
- Properly dispose of latex paint cans.
- Use rags instead of paper towels.
- Choose hydrogen- or oxygen-based bleaches.
- Buy concentrated products.
- Don’t wash clothes after every wear unless they’re really dirty.
- Buy phosphate-free, earth-friendly detergent.
- Keep my refrigerator full to cut down on energy.
- Keep the fridge at 37 F and the freezer at 3 F.
- Maintain my fridge twice a year.
- Use the toaster oven for smaller portion cooking.
- Switch to CFLs.
- Turn off the lights when not in use.
- Use ceiling fans to better circulate the air.
- Manage radiant solar gain.
- Buy gift wrap made of recycled paper.
- Reuse gift wrapping decorations.
- Get creative with gift wrapping.
- Recycle my Christmas tree.
- Choose energy-saving Christmas lights.
- Make my own gift tags.
- Participate in St. Jude’s Ranch for Children greeting cards program.
- Shop at my local farmer’s market.
- Eat less meat.
- Switch to cloth napkins.
- Decline silverware, napkins and condiments when ordering out.
- Wash fruit and veggies in a bowl of cold water.
- Turn the faucet using half the volume.
- Buy in bulk instead of single-servings.
- Collect grey water for watering plants.
- Buy quality products.
- Use rechargeable batteries.
- Buy a paper shredder.
- Recycle old athletic shoes with the Nike program.
- Recycle plastic peanuts with loosefillpackaging.com.
- Download software instead of buying the CDs, when possible.
- Buy only plastic bottles labeled with 1 or 2.
- Create notepads out of scrap paper.
- Ride my bike when running errands three miles away.
- Once a week, use public transportation instead of driving.
- Buy eco-friendly antifreeze.
- Decline housekeeping when staying at a hotel.
- Don’t take the complementary bottles.
- Use biodegradable pet bags.
So a number of new items on the list. I’ll indicate that these are from It’s Easy Being Green with an “E” to clarify the source. Here’s to an eco-friendly 2008!
I have finally found a natural lip balm that I like. My lips really like petroleum. Everything else seems to dry them out. I have tried a number of Burt’s Bees products, and nothing seemed to work. The original would turn my lips blue. Yes, blue. The tinted was OK but sometimes I don’t want to tint my lips. I even tried the honey-based variety. Still the same problem. Dry. Lips.
At Walgreens the other day, I discovered the Replenishing Lip Balm with Pomegranate Oil. Perfect. I like pomegranate. It goes on smooth, tastes/smells nice and I don’t feel like I have to reapply as often as other brands. Yay! Moisture
This takes care of #24 on my eco-wishlist.
Today I have given up batteries. I will, of course, use what remains in the house until they are finally dead and then appropriately recycle them, but I will no longer buy any nonrechargeable batteries from this point forward. I already have a recharger and a number of rechargeable batteries on hand. So it’s a small start.
Also when my other electronic batteries are no longer useful, I’ll recycle these too with the help of information at BatteryRecycling.com. For other recycling needs, I’ll refer to my local government’s list.
Filed under: recycle
It seems silly now, but because of the convenience of the bathroom waste basket, I would throw out the toilet paper roll when all the paper had ran out. How wasteful!! But now I have seen the error of my ways and I am placing these little rolls in the recycle bin. Phew! That would have been a pretty bad eco-blunder.
I’m thinking the next step would be to find toilet paper companies that use recycled cardboard for their rolls. That would be a step toward a good thing. I will save that hunt for another day. For now, here’s to recycling some cardboard rolls!
Filed under: recycle
Check out all the recyclables I brought home from work today. As part of my attempt to do green things during the work day, I collected these items over the past week or so and I usually bring them home the night before trash day. However, they’d piled up so much that I needed to bring them home early. You can’t even see everything in the bag here but there’s a lot. All of which would’ve been thrown away since my company can’t recycle (We’re in a high-rise complex building and the building doesn’t have recycling set up yet. This is weird and concerning considering the building is in Chicago city limits and there are pretty good recycling programs in the city.) So I brought all my stuff and placed in the recycling bin. (Fortunately, the town I live doesn’t charge for recycling, just trash, so this effort is free too.)
My company recently moved to a large corporate office building with multiple suites and buildings, and a variety of amenities. What was quite surprisingly and shocking to discover is that the complex does not have a comprehensive recycling program for anything but paper. (Pretty amazing considering we’re in the City of Chicago).
Today I decided to collect my recyclables and transport them home every garbage day. Right now I have a spare Starbucks bag that I had in my cube to use but I hope to come across a more reusable canvas bag once I get the chance to take a look around the house. I hope to do this soon.
I also swung by Whole Foods and picked up one of their handy paper bags (they have handles unlike Jewel or Dominicks). I’m hoping I can collect enough page with handles from the Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s of the world so I can take those with me to bag my groceries (when I don’t shop there of course). I also tossed a few reusable Whole Foods canvas bags in my trunk for smaller shopping trips.
