Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Going Green for Earth Day

I've been feeling very annoyed with how wasteful people re lately, I don't know why but I seem to be taking it personally when I see someone grab a stack of napkins and then throw them ALL away even though only one or two were used. I'm not sure if it's more about the environment or just from growing up poor- but I just don't get how people can be like this?! So since I can not change everyone to be just like how I want them to be, I figure we will just do more ourselves and teach our boys to be the same so they don't grow up so wasteful.

Some GREEN things we are already or will be doing:

-We already recycle cans, and I would like to do more, but Mike isn't really all about the effort if we can't get paid for it- so we will have to see about this one!

-We have decided to switch to using reusable bags instead of plastic, we don't have enough right now but I am going to make a real effort to have enough by the end of the month.

-We used cloth diapers with Rowan, but got out of the habit quite awhile ago. I am working on building my supply back up and plan on ONLY using cloth with the baby- except for overnight trips.

-We use the clothes line, and will more as it gets warm. I just need to make myself get up earlier so I can wash and hang out clothes before I go to work!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

lol, good luck w/ doing all that!

~abby

SunnyD said...

I always wonder how things balance out. For example, it's better to use paper grocery bags as garbage bags than plastic ones. But if I use my reusable nylon bags at the grocery store then I have to use plastic garbage bags. We spent a year using the Seventh Generation ones (made with recycled plastic) but then again, they weren't as solid as the Hefty brand.

I also tried to use the newspaper cat litter, but my cats hated it. So I switched to the wheat, but then the mice decided THEY liked to eat it. So I'm back on clay litter that gets scooped into plastic bags that don't compose... which means periodically, I have to bring home plastic bags.

I also used seventh generation diapers (which are made without chlorine and use wood pulp). When buying in bulk they're cheaper than Pampers. Because with all the water conservation, they tell you that washing feces into the water supply isn't good.

So which is better, landfill or using water (as our new limited resource)? It's all very confusing to me. But I think you pick and choose... and try to be the best you can be.

~rachel~ said...

Yeah it is quite confusing, and then I think that when we run out of Walmart bags for our bathroom trash, then we would just have to go shopping to get more plastic bags, but I suppose that using them at least twice is a little better than just bringing home the groceries and just throwing them away.

I think one of my big reasons for liking cloth diapers- besides all the evvironmental blah is that they are cute and it's a one time purchase- so I don't have to keep buying dispossables every week or whatever! But they can be really cute :)