Going Green :)

Thank you so much for the info and link!

What a great thread! I can't believe that I just noticed it now!

We try to do a lot of the little things too:

- no plastic shopping bags (always the canvas reusable ones)

- started using biodegradable trash bags for our household garbage

- recycle as many items as we can

- only run the dishwasher full

- we're not vegetarian, but we've cut out red meat and minimize our non-vegetarian meals

- use Method cleaning products (they're sold at Shopper's Drug Mart in Canada)

- don't use airconditioning in our home

- are switching to energy efficient lightbulbs as the old ones burn out

- cloth napkins instead of paper

- ebills instead of paper bills

- never buy bottled water

I think the biggest thing we've done though, is bought a home in the inner city, so we walk to work. Actually, we walk almost everywhere. We have two vehicles, but both of them almost never move on a weekday. Pretty much the only time we drive anywhere is on the weekends. I fill the gas tank of my car maybe once a month, usually more like once ever 6 weeks!

I'm bumping this bc of something we just started...eating local products.

I read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and decided to give a local lifestyle a chance. Most of the food we bought for meals in the last week were from the local farmer's market. The stuff we bought at the grocery - we tried to get as local as possible (stuff like olive oil is hard). For example, tonight we has pasta and pesto - all homemade and all from farmer's market products - flour, eggs, basil, nuts, etc. Also, we are limiting our meat consumption to 2 times a week - and that has to be local meat as well. We are getting ready to sign up for a local dairy that delivers - we'll have a milkman! We are going to do a CSA next season. We wanted to do it this summer, but it's kinda hard bc there are only a couple months of deliveries left in the season. Until then we are going to make do with the farmer's market.

my mom gave us a towel holder for the kitchen as a wedding gift. we don't need it because we just hang our towels on the fridge. so I bought it to my lab & hung a towel from it. Now I can stop using so many paper towels. I wash my hands all the time because I work with bacteria. Our paper towels are so non-absorbant that I run through so many of them a day.

i just wanted to say that i am not really "green" at all- i mean i try to save energy by turning up the AC when we are gone, unplugging all our stuff when we arent using it, and buying organic stuff whenever possible.......but really nothing else

BUT.............this thread has totally inspired me. Today i bought 3 reusable shopping bags, started recycling (i know, i know i should have been doing this one WAY sooner), and am going to attempt to try to make Avery's baby food myself with organic produce. Also i am looking into doing part-time cloth diapering (we cant do cloth at her nanny's)- i saw the Bum Genius brand the other day and thought they looked cool.........we will see.

so thanks ladies and keep the tips coming!