Going green

Going green is "in". My bestest Wen has been interested in a green lifestyle (well and creating a sustainable environment due to her interests in the environment and the sea) as long as I can tell, and whenever I visit her, feel like I should be doing more. In fact, at her new home she has this giant composter. It looks like a giant trash can but its just for composting...go Wen!

During the past six months (maybe a little more) I have been dragging Carl down the green path with me. I'm not sure that we'll be converting to organics anytime soon, but I am proud to report that we are recyclers! Since we started recycling (in March maybe) I have noticed that our trash is easier to manage. Our recycling "bins" reside on our back porch and since we buy much of our food in bulk, we have lots of paper to recycle (along with all of the junk-circulars). We are probably able to recylce about 60% of our trash! Generally we only have a half of a can to put out on Monday nights, which is much better. Carl is on board because its less work for him. Less trash upstairs, fewer bags to collect and drag down to the alley.

We have been shopping with re-usable shopping bags on and off for about a year now, but really just re-committed to it in the last four months. My greatest discovery recently has been the re-usable bags at Sams. Going to Sams (we visit generally once a month) turns into a giant production when its time to bring all of the food into the house. It all comes in large, cumbersome boxes, making it difficult to bring inside in a reasonable amount of trips to the car. The re-usable bags are super helpful with this, as they are quite large and fit a number of products at once! To make things even better, while checking out at Giant Saturday morning, we discovered that you save 5 cents per re-usable bag you bring along with you...how awesome is that? So again, hubby on bored due to convience and cost-savings.

Finally, we converted to CFLs (is that the correct name for those energy-saving lightbulbs) last winter when our BGE bill started getting scary. This summer, we purchased blinds for the living room (to go underneath of the curtains) and energy-saving curtains for the dining room. We immediately noticed positive changes in the climate of our home and on our electric bill, woohoo!!!

So, in my quest to continue my strides to "go green" I started looking at some books and articles online. I feel like we have made the easy, relatively low-cost changes, but I would love to do more. Care to make a suggestion for our next small change?