What is everyone doing to reduce their footprint? I'd like to think I'm relatively eco-conscious, but I know there is a lot more I can be doing. I live in a built green, energy-efficient town home, use all compact fluorescent bulbs, have energy efficient appliances and try to use recycled paper products as well as chemical-free cleaning products.
However, I could; buy all of my groceries locally (when I can), ride my bike more often, use reusable cloth bags when grocery shopping, could have used green paint when painting my house, and the list goes on. It's difficult financially to be 'green'- ah, different post for a different day.
Here are a few tips floating around online today that I don't normally see in the popular posts about how you can lead a more eco-friendly lifestyle:
- A reusable mug: Maybe I haven't noticed this because I don't drink coffee, but for those of you that stop at Starbucks every morning - this is a great tip, much less discussed than the reusable tote bag.
- Get your ice cream in a cone instead of a cup: I very rarely get ice cream without the cone, but will make the environment over calories argument a permanent change.
- De-lint the dryer to improve the efficiency: I think most of us probably do this, but did you know we're saving the environment, too?
- Use safe paints: I mentioned this earlier, however, I learned a cool tidbit from a Home Depot employee a couple of weeks ago. Boulder has the highest amount of 'Green' paint sales than any other Home Depot in the country. I also recently learned that the busiest Whole Foods (according to annual revenue) is the Boulder location. I guess that shouldn't come as a surprise.
- Shut down your computer: We all know this - but how many of us just hit stand by because we don't want to boot it up again when we log on next?
That's all for now. If I run into any other 'less familiar' green tips, I'll post them. Hope everyone is having a good Earth Day and is doing at least one good deed for the environment today! I'm gong to try to clean up trash in my neighborhood (I live in a construction zone) during the second intermission of the Flyers game. I know, not much, but at least it's something.
Tags:
earth day, eco-friendly lifestyle, green tips, go green
April 22 2008 @ 7:29 pm (#)
Oooh, good suggestions! Being friends with people who work for various environmental divisions around town, I can tell you that bringing your own cup to get coffee would do a tremendous amount of good. The reason for this is that those paper coffee cups, no matter what coffee joint you get them from, are not recyclable. The paper is coated with a petroleum-based substance, which is of course why you are able to hold liquid in a cup made out of paper. That coating is also what sadly keeps it from being recycled. Considering how many people get their fix from a coffee shop, that's a lot of paper cups!
Seriously, you don't even want to know how much I've learned about what can and cannot be recycled, how it is sorted and processed, and how my city deals with various recycling issues. :)