Being green has gotten a lot of press lately. Al Gore released the movie An Inconvenient Truth, which was very informative and a bit frightening. On 07/07/07, musicians all around the world got together for Live Earth, a worldwide concert intended to raise awareness about global warming. Hybrid cars have been gaining popularity, to the point where they are no longer an uncommon sight on the road.
At the beginning of the year, Becky said that her New Year's resolution was to be more green. I think that's a great idea. If everyone thought that way, we could really make a difference in the world. And truthfully, it's not that hard to be little more green. Here are some things that Nina and I have been doing.
- We take our own bags to the grocery store. We have some paper bags that we reuse over and over again, and we have cloth bags that we use.
- We don't accept a plastic bag for our merchandise unless absolutely necessary. Think about it. Do you really need a plastic bag to carry your pack of gum and bag of cat food out of Target? Even better, if you know you are going to be buying enough things to require a bag, bring your own bags.
- The bags that we do get, we reuse for other things around the house. We use the plastic bags for scooping kitty litter and for collecting our glass, steel, and plastic recyclables. We use the paper bags for collecting our paper recyclables.
- We recycle. Everything that our city will accept, we recycle it. It's not very hard to throw your cans and bottles in one can and your trash in another.
- We walk instead of drive whenever possible. There is a large shopping plaza about 1/2 mile from our house. We walk there to go to the bank, to go to Target, etc.
- We conserve water. We use a drip irrigation system for our landscaping, and we have been replacing the nonnative water thirsty plants with desert friendly water sipping plants. We don't rinse our dishes before putting them in the dishwasher whenever possible. We don't leave the water running while brushing our teeth.
- Our next car will be a hybrid. Nina is next up for a car, and we have decided that it will be a Prius. Less gas and less emissions.
- We have been slowly replacing all of our light bulbs with florescent bulbs. They use less energy and last longer.
- We will vote for a presidential candidate that believes in saving the environment.
All of these things are easy to do. So why not do them? We should all do everything we can to save the earth. It is, after all, our home.
A few side notes:
- Live Earth was marketed as a 7-continent concert series. It was held in 7 locations. However, all 7 continents were not represented. There was no concert in Antarctica. Sure, it would be a bit silly to hold a concert in a place where only scientists and penguins live, but don't call your event a 7-continent concert series if you're not going to hold it on all 7 continents.
- IKEA has stopped giving out plastic bags. They now charge 5 cents per bag in an effort to get people to stop using them. They also provide a place to recycle batteries and light bulbs, 2 things that are often overlooked by city recycling programs.
Side side notes (by Nina):
-We have begun to switch over to the pine kitty litter instead of the clay clump kind
-We are slowly switching over all the soap products we use to a plant based, biodegradable kind
-We just bought mess bags for produce instead of taking a new plastic one each time we buy apples.
-Brian
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6 comments:
Phoenix may even recycle more than they take at the curb. In Pittsburgh, you can take corrugated cardboard, paperboard, phonebooks, etc. to central locations to recycle. We've been able to recycle all the big boxes that stuff comes in. The place where we take this stuff also takes old building material like doors, cabinets, etc. They also take old bikes...
I drink purple kool-aid so my poopies turns green. We've all got to do our part...
I was very happy to see Ikea start charging for bags. I hope people take the right message from it- it's not that Ikea needs the money to supply you with plastic bags. Plastic bags shouldn't be given away so freely. It's such a waste.
When I forget to bring my own bag, I find that you have to catch the chekout person early in the process to avoid getting a bag. It's an automatic response, and they don't think twice about putting chapstick in a plastic bag for you.
I applaud Ikea, but sadly I doubt other retailers will follow their lead.
Becky, you are right. You have to be quick with the check-out people. They are preprogrammed to throw everything in a bag, no matter how small.
I also hope that people get the right message at Ikea. I can totally see some people getting pissed that they have to pay 5 cents per bag. It is a great thing that they are doing. They are pushing the reusable bags, that they sell for something like 59 cents. Let's just hope people don't buy the reusable bags and then throw them away as soon as they get home.
Not sure it's an option for you in Arizona...you may not even have rain gutters on your house...but we installed an old whiskey barrel off the one downspout as a rainwater collection system and use that for watering plants or dry spots in our lawn.
Gutters? Rainwater?
-Nina
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