Happy Earth Day! In honor of the occasion, I am posting seven really good and simple ideas to "green-up." We at Farm and Fru Fru are not the greenest people, but we do make the effort more and more these days. I get Mary Jane's Farm magazine and Mary Jane Butters IS green...so I am borrowing from her Simple Solutions segment....read more here.
1. Use a Reusable Bag: Resolve to store a reusable bag in your car and take it into stores when you go...generally only 1 percent of the zillions of plastic bags doled out are recycled....
2. Eat Organic: OK, we at farm and fru fru like a big mac as well as the next person, but MaryJane suggests replacing one non-organic food with an organic one when you go to the store. Seems do-able.
3. Ditch Paper Towels: Anyone who knows me personally knows that I have a thing about buying paper towels. I like to use a half at a time not so much to save a tree as to save a buck. MaryJane says Americans go through 2.5 million paper towels a year and suggests using washable microfiber towels as an alternative. I'll go a step further and suggest old tee-shirts...I love using them as they are 100% cotton and absorb well...and here, we have tons of them.
4: Get a Water Bottle: The farmer has always had trouble with the concept of "buying" water...he just can't wrap his mind around it. I understand it...convenience. But really, billions, billions are thrown out each year and the water usually tastes awful to me. MJ suggests a glass or stainless re-fillable one...makes sense to me.
5. Grow Green: I don't have a very green thumb but if you do or even if you want to give it a try, grow something....in a yard spot, garden or pot, get a tomato plant, lettuce or even parsley and grow yourself a salad.
6. Cut Catalog Clutter: This one has my name on it...I love them...but not all of them...you know how it is, you start by getting one you really like and before you know it you are getting one you like and 15 you don't. Visit CatalogChoice.org and opt out of unwanted catalogs...excellent.
7. Buy Less: Uh-Oh.....now this hurts. MJ suggests that each time we enter a store we make a conscious choice to buy less stuff. We are to consider each item carefully and ask if we really need it or just want it. Will we use it or will it end up in a drawer. Here are a couple of interesting statistics regarding "stuff"
...Today we "consume" twice as much as we did just 50 years ago...we have twice as much stuff as our parents...where as they used to buy it and fix it, we buy it, throw it out and buy it again. Some say that as much as 99% of what we buy today will be in the dump within 6 months. We see more ads for stuff in one year than people 50 years ago did in a lifetime... and we shop 3 to 4 times more that Europeans do. The US has 5% of the world's population and we use 30% of the world's resources....and everyday each person in the US tosses 4.5 pounds of garbage....so at least, at least, we should give some thought today, on Earth Day to buying less...What is it they say...All you have is all you need?
Just a little food for thought... and for us here at Farm and Fru Fru...it's a bitter pill we have to swallow...
and you actually mentioned another one the other day with the overalls, which doesn't need to be washed so much reducing the amount of soap used for laundry ! and if you go to thrift stores you are even better !:) N
ReplyDeleteThank you for this. I just popped over to CatalogueChoice and opted out of a dozen catalogues. It's going to be tough not getting pottery barn anymore but I think I can do it ;o) Another great site to opt out of mailing lists is 41pounds.org which covers advertising, credit cards, etc. Great for senior citizens too as extra mail can be downright confusing for them.
ReplyDeleteThank you again for sharing. Those facts in the last paragraph really made me think :)
thanks ya'll! sarah...thanks for the other mailing list site...and bibprof...I love to thrift!
ReplyDeleteHi Sharon! those are all great suggestions I'll take to heart on this day and to come -
ReplyDeleteI love ripping up old tshirts - many purposes!
Those facts in that last bit gave me pause. Whew... we need to clean up our act and FAST!
ReplyDeleteWe always take bags with us, and if I ever want a plastic shopping bag for anything these days they just aren't here.
ReplyDeleteI don't know if the problem is as bad here in the UK as it is in the USA but there is far, far too much waste in the form of unwanted catalogues and mailshots/direct advertising that's always shoved through the letterbox/mailbox. There's an organisation here supposed to be for cutting down on it, but in effect it's actually a marketing choices company as one has to selected the types of mail one does and doesn't want to receive. So I'm always having to recycle lots of stuff that I should never have received in the first place as I'd not asked for it. I've asked a few companies to remove me from their mailing lists for paper catalogues and put me on their emailing lists instead, and they've not bothered. Crazy.
Val