Green

April is Earth Day month.

Here is part one of what I am doing.

Reduce.

Today I put our trash out. For a family of 5 it used to be 2 full garbage cans, sometimes 3. Today it was one. Actually it's been one can for quite awhile. Everything else has been recycled, composted and I have quit buying a lot of prepackaged food. There are more whole foods served in our home lately. This is good, actually it is great.

I have stopped buying detergent in plastic bottles. Now I use the powder version and recycle the box. Sure I could recylce the plastic jug, but that is a petroleum based product. No need for it. We no longer buy plastic bottled body soap. We are old school and use bar soap.

We must pay to have our leaves and yard waste taken away. I'm all for this. My husband is the type of guy who rather than chop it up with the lawn mower will spend hours raking, put it in a petroleum bag and have the garbage men take it to the landfill. No more. It's either mulched by my father (he loves doing this) or my husband will rake it up, put it in the petroleum bag and haul it to the compost station they opened up last year. The petroleum bag comes back home to be used again. The state compost center gives the compost back to the residents. I love it!

Old towels are used as cleaning rags.

Old towels that aren't, bed linens, blankets that are no longer used are donated to the humane society.

All old clothes in good condition are donated to the Salvation Army. Those in not prime condition are donated at the recycling center. Do you know they can make pencil's out of recycled blue jeans?

We don't drive our gas hog big ass SUV anywhere anymore. (well to work) Wherever we go as a family we drive our small car that gets 35 mpg.

Canvas bags. I take them everywhere. The grocery store, Old Navy, Target etc. When I have forgotton them (rarely) I end up with plastic bags. They are either recylced or used for dog waste.

I no longer buy bottled water. We use water bottles and fill them up.

We use car carriers for our coffee. No more throw away cups. We usually make it at home anyway.

Cleaning products are green. I just tried the green products from Clorox (which I understand the Sierra Club has given it's stamp of approval to) It works quite well. Most times (when I have time) it's baking soda, vinegar and borax.

Line drying. I think my husband has finally warmed up to this idea. In the fall, spring and some summer months (when the humidity is 99% the clothes don't dry) I line dry everything outisde with the exception of underwear and towels. I like soft towels or I would line dry them also. I have no idea how much energy this saves. I started it b/c I was pissed off that the utility company raised our rates 60%. It wasn't to be green or save money. I just wanted to sock it to them. Speaking of socks they go in the dryer also. Basically 4 loads of laundry = one dryer load.
I guess my compost bins could be filed under reduce, reuse and recylce. More about them later.

Can you tell I haven't worked out? Ok I did do kickboxing as a dork in glasses. No pain the next day. I did fun swim with the kids yesterday. My daughter is rocking the flip-turn. Who knew? Currently I building David's pool confidence up (per swim teacher's instruction) I think that's more important than swimming a half mile for the time being. I'll only do that once a week, rather than twice. Mother of the Year, here I come!