Happy Earth Day! We celebrated in fine style at work today (we’re an environmental community leader) that culminated in all of us getting our own energy-saving lightbulb to take home. 
I saw some other folks doing this so I’m copying. Basically, you list out the things that you and your family do to reduce your footprint and impact the environment to celebrate and encourage one another…feel free to do your own!
- We’re breastfeeding crazies. Anne has stopped breastfeeding and I’m still a few months away from the experience with our second but this is just one of the hundreds of benefits of breastfeeding. I breastfed Anne until she was 18 months old and anticipate doing the same with our second. No wrappers, canisters, disposable bottles etc… “If every child in America were bottle-fed, almost 86,000 tons of tin would be needed to produce 550 million cans for one year’s worth of formula. If every mother in Great Britain breastfed, 3000 tons of paper (used for formula labels) would be saved in a year. But formula is not the only problem. Bottles and nipples require plastic, glass, rubber, and silicon; production of these materials can be resource-intensive and often leads to end-products that are not-recyclable. All these products use natural resources, cause pollution in their manufacture and distribution and create trash in their packaging, promotion, and disposal.”
- We’re a one-car family.
- I take public transit for my commute to work everyday.
- We recycle everything we possibly can – cans, jugs, plastics, paper. We try to keep ourselves to one bag of garbage a week.
- We don’t use bottled water, choosing to use reusable bottles and purified tap water.
- We use travel mugs for coffee stops instead of taking the paper cups.
- We try not to use paper towels too much, instead using tea towels whenever possible including for cleaning.
- We try to use green cleaning products instead of harsh chemicals.
- We wash all of our clothes with cold water.
- We don’t have air conditioning. (This is only possible in Canada…I couldn’t do this if still in T*xas!)
- We pay all of our bills online and choose e-statements from almost all of our bills and statements. No cheques, no paper, no stamps etc.
- We enjoy and support local parks and hiking.
- We buy fair-trade and organic whenever possible.
- We buy our weekly groceries from a local delivery service. We’re friends with the people that work there and so it’s nice to support a local enterprise. No driving to the grocery store so that reduces emissions (they take 100 orders out so that’s like taking 100 cars off the road), they buy local farmers and its organic and fair-trade.
- We walk to the library, the bank, the video store etc. instead of driving.
- We don’t use plastic bags at the grocery store, bringing along canvas or recycled bags instead, when we do go.
- We keep lights off in the house.
- I work for an environmental leader (in fact, we’re the first in our industry to be completely carbon neutral).
- We use medications as a last resort. The amount of pharmaceuticals in dumps and water supplies is getting scary. We use natural methods first.
- Support our local markets and farmers.
- We keep our fridge and freezer on a mid-cool setting instead of the coldest.
- We don’t turn on the heat or the fireplace unless absolutely necessary, putting on sweaters or socks first.
- We use reuseable containers instead of plastic baggies when possible. When we do use plastic baggies, we reuse them several times.
