Going Green

Since I made a comment in my last post about my goal of a green household, I thought I'd go into a bit more detail of what I mean. In the past few months, I've been doing more and more research on our Earth and where we are headed if we don't start taking better care of it. I decided to start doing my part and I really feel like we've made some progress. I really think that everything we are doing right now can and should be done by everyone. It's not hard, not time-consuming, and not a drain on our budget. Actually, much the opposite, we save money thanks to a lot of these things.

Where our house stands currently:

Cleaning Products - this is probably the biggest change we've made. I do not use a single chemical cleaner. Outside of a few things, nearly everything can be cleaned with homemade, safe for you and the environment cleaners. My number one go-to product is white vinegar. Just mix a little into warm water and you've got a great cleaner-upper. I use it to dust (more on that in a minute), to mop the floors, clean up kitchen messes, clean windows and mirrors, and to clean up doggie messes. If I've got a really tough stain or mess to clean, I'll make a paste with baking soda and water, spread it over the mess, spray on some vinegar, let it set for a bit, and then clean it up. I've actually found that baking soda paste and vinegar works better at getting out pet smells from the rugs and furniture than anything else I've used. Method also has a great line of cleaning products. I use their laundry detergent, dryer sheets, multi-surface cleaner, and bathroom cleaner. Besides the fact that they are eco-friendly, they smell fantastic. I love the fact that my clean bathroom smells like eucalyptus rather than bleach.

Oh, and dusting - even if you aren't concerned about the environment, you still should only use a damp cloth to dust. Think about it for a minute. Pledge claims to attract dust to the cloth you've sprayed it on. But, that same product is being left behind on your furniture...and doesn't that mean the dust is being attracted to it? Since I've stopped using any type of product to dust, I only dust about half as much.

Recycling - Thanks to the great neighborhood Chad and I live in, as of March 24th, we are officially recyclers. And even better, we will have a single stream recycling system, which means we throw everything into one bin, rather than sorting. We'll be able to recycle all our plastic, glass, paper, and cardboard. We've already set up our trashcans in our house to keep our waste separate from our recycling, and by what we've recycled so far, I'm guessing this is going to cut back our trash by about 75%. It makes me feel good just thinking about it!

Stop Junk Mail - Along the lines of recycling, we also signed up to stop our junk mail. We no longer receive pre-approved credit cards, sale fliers, and other random promotions that don't interest us. I used two different website to do this. OptOut let's you opt out of credit card mailings and DirectMail lets you stop other junk mailings.

Grocery shopping - As you already know, another way we cut down on our waste is by taking our own bags to the grocery store. We also make an effort to buy produce that is local and in season. The amount of energy it took to get that strawberry to you in the middle of January is just not worth it! We do most of our shopping at Sappington Farmer's Market, which makes shopping super easy. They are a Missouri farmer-owned market, so we have access to local fruit and produce, local meat, local dairy products (they have the best selection of cheese around), local bakery products...really, the list is endless. Plus, the staff is super friendly and helpful if you ever have any questions. Their mission is "to help local farmers realize a fair profit, so they can produce the amounts of organic and natural foods needed to provide affordable, safe and healthy foods for the families of St. Louis!" You can't beat that.

Energy and Water - Most of this is just common sense, and you probably do a lot of it already. Things like turning off the lights when we leave a room, turning off the water when we are brushing our teeth. Basically, the stuff your parents always yelled at your about. We reuse our bath towels, only run the washer with a full load, and I try to line-dry as much as I can. We keep the heater at 65 in the winter and 78 in the summer, and we've got the water heater turned down a bit, since we don't need a ton of scalding hot water. I've also started taking it a step further, and have begun unplugging our appliances when we aren't using them. Did you know that in the average home, 40% of all electricity is used to power home appliances while they're turned off? Isn't that crazy?! So if you start unplugging your appliances when you aren't using them, you could potentially cut your electric bill by 40%. Currently, we don't have any appliances plugged in in our kitchen or bathroom. My next step is the living room and the office, which have the TV and computer. If you've got power strips with surge protectors, turning them off is the equivalent to unplugging the appliance. I need to get one for our living room to make turning off the TV/DVD/cable box a bit easier. We've actually got one in the office, but we're bad about being too impatient for the computer to come back on so we just never turn it off...horrible, I know! But, Chad and I really need to make an effort to unplug that sucker every night.

Yard - Everything we plant in our yard is local. No tropical hibiscus here! There are a long list of reasons as to why you should use native plants in your gardens and flowers beds, but to just name a few - native plants require less water, have less need for fertilizers and pesticides, and offer a better habitat for wildlife because they’re adapted to the local climate. Also, the lighting in our yard is all solar.

There are also a couple of things that are next on my list to incorporate into our house:

Light bulbs - there are two reasons I haven't switched to fluorescent bulbs yet. First, I don't think I've changed a bulb in our house since before Christmas. So really, I've had no reason to buy new bulbs yet. Second, I need to do more research on the bulbs. These types of bulbs contain mercury, which is very harmful to the Earth, but I believe as long as they are properly recycled, it's not an issue. But again, I need to look into it.

Beauty Products - Again, this is one that's gonna require some research on my part, and unfortunately, I just haven't put the effort in yet. I'd really like to start by switching out my shampoo, conditioner, body wash, and lotion and begin using organic products. Then I'd like to even take the step to my makeup and face products, although I'm a little leary on that one. My face is just so sensitive, I'm worried about how it would react. Anyway, normally, I'd just jump in and buy up all the Burt's Bees products, but unfortunately, they were recently bought out by Clorox, so I no longer trust their organic-ness (Yes, I made up that word). Both Whole Foods and Sappington have a large selection of products, but I just need to start looking into what I wanna use.

And that's my green household so far! We aren't completely sustainable by any means, and I doubt we ever will be. But at the same time, I really believe that every little bit counts. And by changing just a few things at a time, we've really come a long way from where we were. I'm proud of us!