New Green Gadget

The Path to Green is Full of Baby Steps

Going Green Accessible to Everyday ShoppersWith the big chains offering greener pastures, and so many boutiques and specialized online stores providing green products that foster and eco friendly living style, going Green has become accessible. 

How can your household begin to make the changes that will impact the world for yourselves and your children’s children?  It’s not so complicated.  Here are some “baby steps” to environmentally friendly living.  I have included various links to products you can access online.  

Turn out the lights.  Leave the room, turn off the light.  

Throw out your harmful cleaning agents.  If you feel like choking when the bathroom door is closed while you clean the shower stall, don’t use that cleaner!  Those toxic fumes are hurting you, your kids, your pets, air in general, the water it contaminates, and the fish and wildlife that are supposed to drink it. 

Manage your appliances.  If you are using the oven, bake a few things – use the heat.  If you are running the dishwasher, wait until you can fill it to the brim.  Unless you are washing delicates and it will take 3 months to get a full load, wait with the laundry until you maximize the water usage. Most everything can be washed with cold water.  Choose laundry detergents that get your clothes clean, but minimize water pollution. 

I read recently about a new washing machine that will run without water.  Unfortunately, the chemical pebbles they use as an alternative may not be the “green” we need.  

Rethink “disposable everything”.  What has happened to us?  We don’t even want to use a dishcloth anymore, supposedly because of germs (???).  So we have disposable wet clothes for the kitchen, and disposable oven trays, baking tins, food storage containers, coffee filters, etc.  Why do you need a mop pad that you throw away for more litter?  What’s wrong with bending over, using your arm muscles, emptying the mop bucket and maybe washing out the micro fiber mop pad heads? 

 I cut up old towels and clothes and use them for all kinds of cleaning needs.  Some of my old dishtowels have been cut up into dishcloths.  I have micro fiber mop pads that I have used hundreds of times on my hardwood floor.  You can now purchase dryer sheets that last for 500 loads of laundry. 

Replace your aerosol sprays with refillable containers.  Baking spray can be replaced with silicone baking mats, hairsprays with liquid spray bottles, cleaning agents with refillable containers, furniture polish with the same.  These little decisions made by millions of people make a big difference in our environment and its sustainability. 

Join the slow cook evolution.  You can save a lot of energy using many of the slow cooking units instead of the microwave or the oven. And if you do choose to use the oven, (I usually bake bread everyday,) there are ovens available to us now that make much better use of our energy. 

Go Bamboozle.  Bamboo is a cool resource to use as it is naturally sustainable.  Using items made from bamboo last longer and are much easier to sustain by nature.  If you use bamboo for kitchen utensils like wooden spoons or cutting boards, they won’t swell and deteriorate like natural wood fibers do in the water. 

Use reusable shopping bags, but use them carefully.  Please read my article of reusable shopping bag safety. 

How can your recycle what you own?  Trade clothes with friends, use yogurt containers for leftovers, turn your old TV stand into a nightstand in the family room, make stuff out of clothes you no longer want to wear, wrap gifts using what you can find around the house and your imagination (let the kids help).  Just because the stores are FULL of new stuff doesn’t mean you can’t find news ways to enjoy old stuff.  (Just think of being married! <smile> 

Connect – do what you are doing right now and educate yourself.  Either through networks online (you can find a lot of great links on the right side of the site down the column), or read what you can find in the library, fun magazines or watch on the news.  Slowly you will change. 

 You will know you are starting to change, the plan is working, and you are turning into the green your neighbors will envy, when you find yourself carrying out 2 separate garbage bags; one for what is recyclable and can be a renewable source, and one for the landfill that is shy on plastics and cardboard and big on responsibility.