July 27, 2010
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What do you DO?
Yesterday over at Bouree Musique’s site – http://boureemusique.xanga.com/ – Emily was talking about the mess we (humans) have made of our resources. (She has been speaking to that a great deal lately – articulately and well, I might add. Wander over there and see for yourself.) Bouree’s question is “What can we do” to stop the erosion of our natural resources and our disconnect with the natural world. I don’t disagree that that is a valid question because each and every one of us could and should do more. However, I would like to back it up a bit and ask, What are you already doing to preserve and protect of planet because I think we can learn from one another and maybe find things we aren’t already doing because we haven’t thought of them. So I pose the question, What do YOU DO to make the planet healthier? I’ll start.
1. I switched all the light bulbs in the house to those energy efficient ones. They last longer and shaved $10 off the electric bill. I told the neighbors.
2. I don’t drive the car except on weekends. In a Village of 2 square miles I can walk or bike anywhere I need to go. If it’s raining I walk and carry and umbrella – yup, even in a downpour, even in the winter.
3. I have significantly cut back on the amount of plastic I use. I wish I could say I’ve eliminated it. I’m working on it.
4. I don’t eat fast food. It’s bad for me, makes me feel gross and all that styrofoam and paper – blech.
5. I think long and hard about where I shop and how far I have to travel to do it. I support independent shops and stores as much as possible and don’t mind the few extra dollars it might cost because I am helping to keep a local business in business. That matters to me.
6. I use the library. Really. Not just because I work in one but because it makes good economic and resource sense. Why buy something I am only going to read/watch/listen to once? That’s wasteful. Libraries are resources in their own right and must be used to be preserved.
7. Except for underwear I don’t buy new clothes. I find wonderful and serviceable clothing and linens at thrift stores, flea markets and garage sales. They work just fine and don’t make my children – the fashion mavens – wince.
8. I grow a garden. It’s great for mental and physical health; the produce tastes great; it’s pretty. Those are my reasons. I am sure there are others. I also make most of what I eat from scratch. I bake bread. I don’t buy “prepared” foods except for the occasional box of macaroni and cheese. I grow my own sprouts. Easy and fun.
9. I wait until the washer is full before I run a load through. I wish I had a place to hang clothes.
10. I take care of what I have. That seems like such a silly thing. Of course one should take care of what one has. However this is probably the most significant change I have made in my thinking and my lifestyle. In this, my new life, I think very carefully about what I purchase and everything I have I like enough to live with forever if need be. This doesn’t mean I don’t want other things, it simply means I have learned patience, and am not in a hurry to replace or buy something else. I have learned to say “Enough,” not as a punishment but as a choice.
That’s what I am doing. How about you?
Peace, my friends.
Comments (18)
You are a good human! Thank you for helping our planet. I have been doing a lot of the same things. I have changed all the light bulbs and added a storm door to the condo. I recycle trash and newspapers. My clothes are usually from goodwill, or other thrift shops. The good guy is a hoarder so his room has become a recycle bin in its self. We use the library, I buy garage sale books and then circulate them to family, friends, senior center and clubhouse.
There aren’t many other things I can do but when I find something helpful I will try to do my best. Good luck world!
So much love and hug! I try to reduce consumption, reuse the few plastic and glass things that bulk groceries come in, and I recycle when I can. Using the library and not buying new clothes are two of my favorite things! My wardrobe is pretty ridiculous, but I have clothes that cover my body and fit more or less properly; why would I need more until these wear out? I love what you’re doing here!
Yup on alot of what you said and do!!! I should try my hand at bread again – yeast doesn’t seem to like me, any tips? Oh, and our chain grocer is now promoting local produce they get from within 100 miles. Backyard melon and pepper for breakfast today, backyard squash with dinner – really, is there anything more fun than going outside and picking your meal!
Great post!
Great post and thank you for making everyone think more about this. We recycle as much as we can. If I can find another use for something, it doesn’t go into the trash. We are cutting back on things we buy that we thought we needed but then after a few months, we’re going – why did we buy this. It saves a lot of money to. I am trying to get us more in the habit of putting a grocery list together rather than going to the store frequently because it is relatively close. I monitor my driving so that I’m just not driving for no reason. We monitor our electric meter readings daily and try every way we can to cut back on our usage. We’ve dropped it by at least 25% since we’ve been doing this. Opening the windows when the weather is decent and humidity is low is something we’re doing more of. We are increasing our garden and plan to do more with this. We don’t buy commercial cleaning stuff as we make our own and that’s so much better. Laundry detergent is Dr. Bronner’s Sal Suds that goes a long ways and is much safer for the environment and better for the clothes. Very seldom do we eat fast food because the amount of trash from that is horrendous. We like home cooked meals anyway and when I cook i try to cook enough for two or 3 days worth and maybe some I can freeze so meal time isn’t a big time consuming task every day. I’ve turned the AC temp up so the house isn’t as cold as it was and we use ceiling fans to help it feel cooler. I’ve got my laptop set to go into power saving mode if I’m not using it. Wish I could ride my bicycle more and walk more but that isn’t feasible here like it was when we lived in Miami. I miss that.
Oh i forgot the big one. We’ve cut way back on paper and printing. I try to get as many of my bills through email and save them as files on my computer. I don’t print things unless I truly need them and are truly going to use them. We waste too much printer ink and paper in this country. I’ve gone to a refillable inking system and a printer that is much more efficient on ink usage. I installed pdf writing software (pdf995 that is free) and so if I want to save something, I print it to a pdf and file it on my computer. All this cuts down on filing cabinet/filing folders, etc, as well.
Good stuff. I didn’t own a car until I was 25, and then it was my wife’s. A bike got me everywhere in my college town.
@travelerblue - Yeast can stand water a lot hotter than I ever imagined. It can’t be boiling but just short of that works just fine. The salt and sugar in the bread help it work so don’t eliminate those although I have used honey rather than sugar and have cut down A LOT on the sal my recipe calls for.
@FL_boi - Tell me more about SalSuds. I use Dr. Bronner for showering but haven’t used the laundry soap. It does the job? Tell me more about making your own cleaning stuff…what does that consist of? That intrigues me.
To all who recycle – I do that as well but it is always a cumbersome mess. What do you do to organize it? How often do you take it where it needs to be? Where do you put it while it’s waiting to go to the recycling? I’ve gone paperless as much as possible so there is less in the mailbox and less junk mail to contend with.
@FL_boi - I print very little. Don’t even have a printer at home although if I got one what would you recommend? I print almost nothing at work and we recycle scrap paper into stack of small paper for patrons and staff to scribble notes on. I admit to being a post-it junkie.Wonder if you can make your own…..
@csn71650 - Dr. Bronner Sal Suds is what I use for general cleaning and laundry. It takes very little to do a load of laundry or for general cleaning. It is very good for the environment as it breaks down with water and not like most cleaners. I believe it is all natural substances. Go to http://www.drbronner.com/ and look for the Sal Suds. We buy it in the gallon which lasts forever (maybe a year for us).
Cleaning: Windows I use club soda and it works like a charm. Its got other uses too. But I just buy it in bulk and put it in a sprayer bottle and that’s about it. It lasts forever and is much cheaper than commercial window cleaners. That’s just one example that works great!
Most of what I’ve learned about came from a book by Karen Logan. If you see my post on my mind body thoughts blog, it shares a lot of information. http://mindbodythoughts.blogspot.com/2009/01/clean-house-clean-planet.html . That is one book I’ve used / read over and over again. I wouldn’t give that book up very easily. She has so much information about ingredients of household cleaners and the harmful affects of them as well as recipes for all kinds of cleaning situations in a home. That’s where I heard about Dr. Bronners. If you buy only one book this year, that book would be well worth it. A vast amount of information in this.
@csn71650 - I bought an Epson Workforce 610 printer which is an all in one type of printer/scanner/copy/fax. I need it for my business and unfortunately on some of the computer jobs, I print out hundreds of pages of documentation. That sucks but we have to do it.
This printer seems to be much more efficient on ink and that was a selling point. I’ve got a refillable ink automated system that I’m going to be setting up soon and using. That way, all i do is buy the ink and no ink cartridges to get rid of.
I’ll tell you, one of the best things I did was downloaded pdf995 which was free and now if there is something I really want to save on the internet but I don’t want to print the paper, I print it to a pdf which is easy. Then I’ve got it for later. That cut my paper printing down a lot.
@csn71650 - For recycling – we have a bin that we put out every week to get picked up. So we keep it in the garage where we can step right outside the door and put things in it. So anything we have, it is easy to just walk a few feet and drop it in. Then on collection day, we just take it to the curb. Other plastic stuff we get like grocery bags (and I so want to get away from them) is something we put in a big we have in our kitchen. We have a cabinet that has two trash bins that slide out and one is garbage and the other is for plastic stuff. Very easy and convenient. We’ve got shelves in our garage and one of them, we use for old newspapers and stuff. One we get a little bit, it goes into the recycle bin as well. Old containers and things, I often use them outside to water my plants or mix paint in or store stuff or anything I can think of. What is sad though is that in our neighborhood only 10% maybe put recycling stuff out and I’m ready to start raising “H” about this in the city. It isn’t that hard to do this and I know these rednecks around here drink a lot of beer. No need for beer bottles and cans to go to a landfill.
@FL_boi - I just ordered Logan’s book from the library. Can’t wait! I have to actually take stuff to recycling as they don’t pick up here. Annoying but not awful as I incorporate it into whatever errands I run on the weekend. I think maybe a rectangular bin would work better than the container I have which is filled after two jugs of whatever and a couple of flattened boxes. Hmmm.
All great points and with the exception of the library and garden, I pretty much do the same. No English language libraries here, although I make good use of the used book stores.
There’s something that’s scratching at the back of my mind, though. I may not articulate this well, so forgive me, but the fact that we’re sitting at a computer to have this conversation, a device made with all sorts of toxic substances and which is designed to go obsolete in just a few years, seems to undermine all of the other activities. It is almost like on a much bigger scale the human race’s constant growth and development has set us on an unsustainable path, a path which no amount of compact flourescent bulbs and recycling is going to make sustainable.
Not to be gloomy, but it sometimes feels like many of these items we’re doing “to save the planet” are just feel-good band-aids.
@christao408 - I have to think about this a little more and I’ve no idea what goes in to the manufacturing of a computer but let me try this…we can’t go backwards. We have opened Pandora’s box and what comes out can’t be stuffed back in. However, we can choose what to do next. I don’t know that anyone is willing to go back to oil lamps and I for one am absolutely not willing to take my laundry to the lake and pound it on rocks. No thanks. So we choose how to help repair that which we have helped to break. Our individual efforts alone are certainly not enough but collectively I think we can make a difference. If you don’t mind I am going to post and respond to your comment as a blog because I think it’s incredibly important. Let me know.
@csn71650 - Please do write a post on this subject as I’m really curious where people’s thoughts are on it. I agree that we’ve opened the lid and of course people aren’t going to want to go back, but still can’t help wondering if we’ve already gone past the point of no return. Regards.
@christao408 - @csn71650 - Computers and other electronic components can be recycled as well. Our school district contracts with a guy who has it done here – some “recycling” centers for computers, etc., just dump them in some foreign country, so make sure you find some one reputable.
@DMMeyer - That’s the big challenge. So many of the “recyclers” send component pieces to southern China where people burn the plastic casings from wires, etc. to extract the precious metals, resulting in horrendous polution. Even the best recyclers are really down-cycling as few of the components can be turned back into the same value of product and instead have to be sent downstream to a lower value product. Just like all the plastic bottles that are “recycled” to become trays at a fast-food restaurant while new plastic bottles are made from scratch.