Tuesday, April 21, 2009
10 Simple Steps to Make Your Life Greener
By Rachel H
Earth Day is tomorrow, so it is a perfect time to make a new resolution. Resolve to make your life greener starting tomorrow! This is not a daunting task, because I have purposely made a list of very simple steps that will take just a few minutes to help our environment. If everyone did these things, just think how many trees we would save, energy we would save, and pollution we would reduce. Hopefully you are already doing the obvious by recycling, switching to more eco-friendly lightbulbs, and turning off anything electrical when not in use. Here are a few more:
1. Say no to the “Would you like a receipt” question at the gas station and the ATM. They are going to show up on your credit card bill and/or bank statement anyway, so save the paper.
2. Speaking of credit card bills and bank statements … change to online banking. Through online banking you can pay all those bills. You are saving paper, time, and stamps!
3. Carpool those kids around! Do you drive your children to and from school every day? Find a neighbor and alternate days or weeks to take the children to school. Try the bus if you can, too. How about sporting events? If it is an event that mom does not need to attend, have one parent drive as many kids as possible.
4. Buy reusable bags! Bags at the grocery store are only a few bucks. If you are wanting something a little more fashionable, take a look at our Neela bags. These are great gifts as well.
5. Buy a timer for your water heater and set it to heat water for only a few hours a day instead of 24 hours a day. It will reduce your electricity bill tremendously!
6. Buy locally grown foods. Not only will you be supporting our local farmers, but you will cut down on pollution.
7. Wash your clothes in cold water. Did you know that only 10% of the energy used by your washing machine powers the motor? The other 90% is used to heat the water! Most clothes will come clean in cold water.
8. Give your kids cloth napkins in their lunch boxes instead of paper napkins. If you are crafty, you can even make your own out of cute fabrics.
9. Set up rain buckets or barrels in your yard or at the end of roof gutters. Save it for when you need to water plants.
10. Go to www.catalogchoice.org and make requests to stop receiving certain catalogs. I did this a few weeks ago and it was very easy. Although I love to look through catalogs, there are very few that I actually order from anymore. It’s just as easy to order online. I am also still receiving baby-type catalogs, which usually go straight into the recycling bin since my kids have outgrown most of that gear.
So that’s it Smarty Readers! Ten very simple steps that you can do to start feeling better about the way we treat the earth. I am certain there are many of you out there who have already been doing these 10 things for years and much much more in addition to this.
If you are a Green Mom who has other ideas to share with us, we would love to feature you as a Guest Glogger for our "Saving the Earth" category. Email us here to share your idea, and we’ll get you started! Be sure to check out Guest Blogger Andrea M’s guide to cloth diapers too!
Happy Earth Day, Smarties!
4 comments:
Great ideas! Thanks for the tips on the catalog website. I get so many catalogs and I cannot tell you how many go straight into my recycling bin without me even looking through them. I am excited that there is an easy way to cut down on the amount that arrive in my mailbox.
Love the Neela bags!
~Tina
I have to put in a second vote for carpooling. Not only are we being greener by doing so, but think how much faster the drop-off line would be if it were cut in half! If everyone just carpooled with one other person, we'd save quite a bit of time and gas.
I just read something in a magazine about doing your laundry at off times of the day, like after everyone is in bed. It cuts down on energy use if you do it at a time when not many people in your area are using water.
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