Sometimes, I feel a little smug. It's so popular to talk about Saving the Earth, now that Gore went and brought An Inconvenient Truth to the masses. Now that most scientists finally agree that it would be better not to trash the planet. But at the risk of sounding like I'm tooting my own horn, (which I am, though), I was green way before it was something to be proud of. Reminds me of a country song: "I Was Crunchy When Crunchy Wasn't Cool".
Okay. So, it's true I don't live in a straw-bale house and I pretty much only ride a bicycle in front of the TV with a cup of coffee on the windowsill, but still there are earth-friendly things I've been doing for ages that you could do, too. Here is my handy-dandy, quickie list of things that take barely any thought, but save money and generate less trash:
* Cleaning cloths, not Swiffer dusters
* Washcloth, not Wipes
* Sponge or dish towel, not paper towel
* Cloth napkins, not paper napkins
* Carry a water jug with you and fill it from the tap. Empty water bottles create an enormous amount of trash! If your home water is "bad", consider having a Reverse Osmosis tap put in.
* Reusable lunch bag, not paper bag.
* Compost.
* Juice in a cup, not a juicebox.
With a minimal amount more effort, you can do these:
* Use homemade cleaning products. See book Clean Home, Clean Planet on how to do this.
* Make homemade pizza dough, pizza sauce, spaghetti sauce, waffles, cookies. Homemade pizza is very cheap, delicious and takes barely more time than ordering and waiting.
* Buy used clothing or other goods.
* Freecycle - an on-line list where you can give away/pick up things locally. Save money and reuse things.
* Cloth hankys. Yes, there is such a thing. Look up "Hankettes" on the web. Maybe I'll stick the site in here when I get a chance.
If you really rock and want to be Ultra Mother, do these:
* Garden. Can your own veggies. Canning your own veggies is Ultra Green! Bonus points if the jars you use were your MIL's from 1947!
* Hang laundry on a clothes line. I admit I haven't done this in a couple of years.
* Cloth diaper your babies. Ditto this.
* Breastfeed at least one year. Bonus points if you use no bottles - scary news about plastic bottles lately!
* Throw a party and serve everything on real plates with real forks and knives. Serve water in a pitcher and pour it in water goblets.
There are other great things, but the above are things that are within my experience. Here are some I've never done:
* Get milk from a creamery in the glass bottle, which you return for more milk.
* Go a year without buying anything (as in clothing, shoes, toys, books - yeah, stop me right there! - decorations, etc.)
* Give only non-material gifts; a dinner out, a bowling trip, a picnic.
* Buy bulk products and fill your own containers repeatedly.
* Use cloth female products or a Diva Cup (google it).
* Live in a teepee. Okay, I'm kidding about that!
Lastly, a few principles that lead to green planet and green pockets, too:
* Before you buy something, ask yourself if anything else you have will do this job. Is there another way you can use this thing without buying it? How will it be disposed of when you don't need it anymore?
* When you have used something, ask, can this be used for something else? By someone else?
* When you no longer need something, pass it on. I recall Deepak Chopra said something in The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success that stuck with me. He said, "Money is like blood, it must flow." He said that hording it and holding on to it stagnates it or something along those lines. I think the same thing about possessions. Let it flow, pay it forward.
* Recycle and Reuse - but in a contest, reusable is better than recyclable. Every day, you can fill the same water jug. That's better than buying 365 water bottles that have to be manufactured and shipped all over God's green earth, and then have to be carted off for recycling and use resources all over again to recycle them into a poly-fleece dog sweater!
And here's my A-list of the most ill-conceived disposable products ever:
* disposable cutting boards
* disposable baby washcloths
* plastic baby utensils meant for one use
* single-use toilet brushes
* single-use dishwashing sponge
In closing, don't be hurt if I've picked on The Product You Can't Live Without. I have my favorite non-green environmental disasters, too. (Can everyone say "Escalade"?) I'm not the embodiment of all things green, Mother Nature. But some things are so simple to do, yet our culture says, "Look how easy, you just throw it away..." I'm asking you to re-think what you throw away. I can just imagine my grandmother hearing about Kleenex tissues for the first time. "Why would anyone pay good money for a handkerchief that you throw away after one use???" Think about it!
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