Easy Green Habits January 28, 2010

I’ve been aiming green since high school, many, many years ago. Now that it’s so popular, I feel so cool. Hey, green is even my favorite color. Here are some of the things we can all do to be “greener”:

-Buy things with less packaging or easily recyclable packaging.

-Recycle whatever we can. That is, cans, bottles, and more. I keep bins for mixed paper and bring them to the town recycling center. It’s amazing how quickly these fill up. My son started kindergarten and gets a stack of paper to bring home every day. Add that to piles of junk mail and that can really clog up a landfill if you don’t recycle it.

-Buy economy sizes and refill containers, like liquid soaps.

-Use cold water to wash clothes whenever possible. Always use cold water to rinse. Make sure your laundry loads are full. When you are ready for a new machine, buy an HE Energy Star washer that uses less water and energy. If you can use a laundry line outside instead of a dryer, that’s a huge plus. Use natural detergents that you can buy in Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s. I was given these very cool laundry balls that you can use in place of detergent. It has greatly reduced the amount of detergent I use.

-Bring your canvas bags everywhere you shop. As extra incentive, you’ll get 5 cents back at most supermarkets and even Target for doing so.

-Get take out less often. Reuse the containers, plastic ware and bags from take out. Recycle the brown bags and reuse the plastic ones.

-Turn off lights and unplug appliances and other devices that are not in use. Even if something is powered off, it still uses electricity.

-Change your car’s air filter and keep it tuned up. This will help clean the air that is emitted from the car and maintain its fuel efficiency. Don’t keep a lot of unused junk in the car, as heavier weight causes fuel inefficiency.

-Change to fluorescent bulbs. It’s easy and cheap and you will get brighter lights out of it, plus you’ll lower your bills. There are some very cool looking bulbs now, much nicer and softer than the traditional squiggly ones.

-Shorten your showers and don’t leave water running. Hot water requires a lot of work from your hot water heater.

-Turn down the heat when you are not at home and at night. Use a space heater if you need to rather than heating your entire house.

-Opt for online or email billing.

-Don’t print things out. Read online. Magnify your view if needed.

-Donate clothes,  shoes and toys you are not using.

-Buy pre-owned stuff. It takes a lot of energy and materials to produce new things like toys, clothes, cars, etc.

-Eat less processed food. This uses less energy to produce and less packaging.

-Reuse plastic bags and use fewer plastic bags.

-Use reusable containers for food and drinks.

-Grow your own food. Or visit your local farmers.

-Eat leftovers. When you can’t, feed them to your pet. This is perfect in my house since I have dogs and a rabbit. Here’s an idea: you can adopt a rabbit from a shelter and he’ll eat all your vegetable scraps. Perfect! And you’ll have a great friend too.

-Buy natural food and cleaning supplies.

-Compost.

-Drive less. Combine errand-running trips. Don’t let your car idle.

-Eat vegan food. I’ll cover this one a lot in other posts! It’s the greenest thing you can do.

Are You Green (I Mean, Vegan)?

Well, word’s finally gotten out that you can’t go around calling yourself an environmentalist if you’re not a vegan. Even if you drive a Prius and unplug things when you go out. That means anyone who eats meat or animal products is contributing to global warming and the destruction of the earth at a higher rate of those who do not.

It’s great if you drive an energy-efficient car, you insulate your home, unplug appliances and turn off lights, use items with less packaging and recycle, etc. But once you pick up that burger 0r chicken patty, you’re wrecking your record. Cows emit tons of methane. And that’s not just it. Their waste destroys land and and overuses and pollutes our water. They are eating many times the amount of grain that could be fed directly to people, wasting so many resources in the process. Livestock also contributes about 2/3 of ammonia emissions, which acidify the environment, causing acid rain and much other damage. Chemicals and antibiotics that the animals are loaded up with don’t just go away. They are found all over the environment, such as in the water supply. Forests of all kinds, including rainforests, are cleared to make room for animals to pasture. Recent analysis by Goodland and Anhang finds that “livestock and their byproducts actually account for at least 32.6 billion tons of carbon dioxide per year, or 51 percent of annual worldwide GHG emissions.”

From PETA (goveg.com):

“More than half of the water used in the United States today goes to animal agriculture, and since farmed animals produce 130 times more excrement than the human population, the run-off from their waste is fouling our waterways. Animal excrement emits gases, such as hydrogen sulfide and ammonia, that poison the air around farms, as well as methane and nitrous oxide, which are major contributors to global warming. Forests are being bulldozed to make more room for factory farms and feed crops to feed farmed animals, and this destruction causes soil erosion and contributes to species extinction and habitat loss. Raising animals for food also requires massive amounts of food and raw materials: Farmed animals consume 70 percent of the corn, wheat, and other grains that we grow, and one-third of all the raw materials and fossil fuels used in the U.S. go to raising animals for food.”

It’s really impossible to be an environmentalist if you use animal products.

For some more really fascinating related facts from “Diet for a New America” by John Robbins, see http://www.soystache.com/environm.htm