Going Green :)

Other things I thought of:

- i don't use teflon pans

- we try and buy organic dog food as much as possible. Our pup also has a hemp leash and collar.

- old or unused clothes, toys, etc are donated.

- i don't take baths and my showers are only 10 minutes

- we use ceiling fans and not the AC (unless it gets super hot and I only turn on the AC because of Aiden...)

- we grill in green friendly ways

- damaged/stained clothing that can't be donated is recycled into cleaning rags

- we use a resuable coffee filter

- use rechargable batteries

Also, the whole green thing has become a huge trend lately. I think it's awesome, but there's unfortunately some companies who want to profit on this trend and market themselves as "green" when they are not. So be aware of greenwashing and do your research with companies that promise green products. Some of them are not!

Oh! And booksharing!!! I do that. I use bookmooch.com to trade my old books and get new ones as well as do booksharing/bookswapping with friends, etc.

Great thread ladies!!! DH and I battle over being green, and while we aren't the greenest, we do try to do our part. We recycle everything, and now that we have a house, we started a compost pile in our yard (which is awesome!) and we don't use any chemicals in our garden. We just ordered praying mantis eggs to keep the bugs down (thanks for the idea... - I can't remember who it was on here!). We use canvas bags for groceries, and all of our appliances are HE.

We are Seattle kids so it's easier for us to be green than other cities.

- We recycle everything we can. Some cities aren't easy to recycle in because you have to drive to the recycling place rather than home pick up. Some cities are also super picky about what types of materials they accept for recycling.

- All the bulbs that can be are energy efficient.

- We unplug what we can. One big one is the DVR box that our cable goes through. We used a watt meter thing to see how much energy it used while "off" - it was a crap ton!!

- I take a non-disposable lunch bag to work

- We use reusable storage containers as much as possible

- We reuse containers - eg. big yogurt containers, jars - for storage

- We try to buy some things in bulk to reduce packaging waste.

- DH uses mass transit for work. I take a ferry for part of my commute.

- On weekends we rarely drive.

- We try to go meat free 3 days a week.

- We use green cleaning products as much as we can.

- We have dual flush low flow toilets. There are separate buttons for pee and poo so you use less water when just flushing pee.

- We don't have AC.

- Our house uses radiant heating/cooling

- We take our own travel cups to coffee places so we don't waste the paper cups.

- We use bamboo as much as possible. Our floors are bamboo. We also have bamboo fiber sheets and bamboo serving dishes.

As for the future I can never decide if cloth diapers or disposable are better. Obviously it's good not to throw stuff away, but I've read that once you factor in the delivery truck gas usage to get disposables to you and the water/soap wasted washing them that it pretty much evens out.

This is such a great thread! I follow some of them but will try and do more. Green is going to be my last name! I better start living that way!!

I'm impressed ladies! Fi and I feel like we are the only people who recycle in our building cause all we see in there is our stuff and we recycle every piece of cardboard not just the big ones. I sort of feel like our super hates us but oh well!

I don't really have any new ideas to add and I already do several of the ones mentioned in the past threads. What I can do that I read above still is:

- get rid of all harsh chemicals ( I still have some left, some green stuff tho)

-unplug power strips when not in use. (been meaning to do this)

- we are mostly organic but not 100% yet

Thanks!

"As for the future I can never decide if cloth diapers or disposable are better. Obviously it's good not to throw stuff away, but I've read that once you factor in the delivery truck gas usage to get disposables to you and the water/soap wasted washing them that it pretty much evens out."

I have heard that this is just a fact Disposable diaper companies have put out there. If you do a load of cloth diapers every few days you are still being better to the environment then if you buy disposable. That being said I will admit with my first we used cloth but since hubby is on parental leave this time we use disposable.

I'm soooo glad this thread is still going. I took a list home and showed DH and we are ready to make even more changes!

We had registered for these pans from Macy's, but didn't get them. I'm also concerned about teflon and non stick things. What do the "greenies" think of these

Martha Stewart Collection - Macy's

I want to return a few of the other items we received and get them. We did get organic cotton towells from our registry, which was super exciting!