Happy Earth Day? Here’s why I care…
Living in mindful way includes caring for my surroundings, my environment and the life I share with others. Wouldn’t it be great if we lived every day as if it was Happy Earth Day?
Here’s how I’m trying to help…
- To save water, I turn off the water in my showers while I soap up.
- My husband and I rely on public transportation or walking to get around Manhattan.
- We recycle.
- We’ve gotten into the habit of bringing our own bags for our weekly food shopping.
- We compost our food scraps.
- We try to buy organic, non-GMO produce as much as possible. (Pesticides are bad for the environment and bad for the body…buying organic is also a way to vote with your dollars!)
- I purged our medicine cabinet of all products containing phthalates, parabens and sulfates.
- I shop the local farmer’s market whenever I can.
And…
This week I’ll be taking our old small electronics to the local copy store to be properly recycled.
How about you?
How do you show your love for planet earth? What will you do to reduce your carbon footprint today?
P.S. This isn’t my first time writing about green living, but as you’ll see from my embracing my “Inner Earth Mother” post, I’ve now added to the list of things I’m doing to “give back” to the planet. After all, good habits take time to build.
I do my best to reduce, reuse and recycle. I’ve gotten into a pretty good habit with my cloth grocery bags, and am thinking about ways to buy bulk items without using plastic.
Hi Jennifer, I agree with you on the plastic bags for produce. I feel bad using them, but I don’t necessarily want my lettuce, radishes and other “looser” produce rattling around the fridge without being in some kind of container. Let me know if you come up with a good solution! Meanwhile, I just talked to my mom tonight and she said she heard that recycling could be obsolete soon since the Chinese – who apparently do a lot of our recycling – are saying that they won’t take on any more of our stuff. Aack! xox – Joana
I am so impressed that you are willing to take military-style showers! I sure won’t do that, but I do save water by simply not flushing the toilet every time I use it (at home, I mean). I also save waste water from washing dishes to water houseplants. I unplug appliances when not in use, saving “phantom” electricity. I use cloth shopping bags at least part of the time. I only turn my furnace up to 64 or 65 degrees (brrrr, wear layers) and turn the temperature down to 60 at night or when I’m away from the house for a few hours. Note: my furnace guy said not to do this in very cold temps, but it’s OK in the 20s and 30s. In the summer, I often sleep in my guest bedroom downstairs, which stays cooler that my upstairs bedroom. I need grocery plastic bags for pet waste purposes, but I always try to use them at least twice before they have their final mission. I drive a new Prius that gets crazy good mileage, and I drive it in a way that conserves energy. I also try to combine trips. That’s most of it, I guess.
Hi Helen, I think if we ever get cars again (only when we move from the city, of course) that we will probably look into hybrids, too. We also do the not flushing thing but that’s just during the night – and for the “polite” reason of not wanting to wake each other up. 😉 Do your plants end up getting fed soapy water? My mom is also struggling with the guilt of using so many grocery plastic bags for little Puck’s waste. I just sent her a link to a line of “green” bags…maybe that will be a good option? XOX – Joana P.S. I not only take military-style showers, but I now also do a finishing rinse with cold water! That’s not so much to save the planet but to shock my system/get my capillaries doing whatever they’re supposed to do to keep me healthy. Hokey as it may seem, I haven’t been sick at all this year. (I got the idea from Wim Hof – the Iceman. Look him up on YouTube…he’s pretty out there, but I think he’s really on to something.)