Earlier this week our survey What's the First Green Habit You Adopted asked readers to share what their earliest green habits were. Responses were great! Many of you answered the question by reminiscing about your childhood—loved it! A few of my favorite responses are below the jump.
Favorite responses to Tuesday's survey:
- Planting trees
- Reducing your dependence on plastic
- Not using plastic straws
- Making dust rags from old t-shirts
- Abandoning patterned paper towels
- Being vegetarian
- Growing vegetables
- Turning off lights, even if it was to save money to buy a TV
- Adoping minimalist attitudes towards material things
- Repairing your belongings instead of tossing them
- Cutting-up six pack rings before disposing of them
- Using low-flow shower heads
While you were thinking about the past, I surveyed friends and family to find out what habits they could improve upon going forward. Here's what they said:
- Choosing cloth diapers over disposable
- Switching to organic cleaning products
- Buying only organic produce
- Investing in energy-efficient windows and ENERGY STAR appliances
- Biking around town
- Choosing eco-friendly paint
A few of these "habits" are actually important, expensive purchases. While there are many updates I'd love to make to our home, it takes time and money. If a pile of cash appeared this morning, I would replace our home's windows and W/D unit with more energy efficient models and remove our 15-year-old roof and update it to include attic ventilation. Hopefully, we can make these updates over time (especially the roof), but what can I do right now, beginning today? I can commit myself to two changes: composting and purchasing only for the long-term.
SURVEY: What habit can you commit to greening?
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You could reduce water waste by using a composting toilet.
That could mean a pretty big lifestyle change, but I'm hoping to get there some day.
banned grocery bags and other shopping plastic / paper bags out of my life...and then the crusade has continued and moved on to many more conscious decisions over the last 17 years
I've noticed that most of my plastic trash was coming from packaged foods & snacks, so I'm working on cooking more from scratch.
I also switched to a Diva Cup and home-made cloth pads to get rid of my other big trash generating purchases.
Last one - walk more. Even bikes take resources to make & maintain. They're better than cars, but walking is best of all. I joke to friends that I'm my own personal pack mule :)
We're replacing single-pane windows with energy-efficient windows that will actually pay us back in both electricity savings and a tax credit!
Like kmehl touched on, I discovered that switching my birth control method to an IUD meant that my monthly trash generation dropped dramatically.
My husband and I are considering converting our diesel car to run on vegetable oil, but are still in the discussion stage. It would be a big, expensive change, but it would obviously be a very green one.
We also joined a CSA, but discovered that we were throwing away too much of the veggies. Next year, we'll just shop at the farmers' market instead.
So far I've been doing:
- Recycling plastic and making all my family do the same.
- Reducing the need to buy plastic bottles at all and trying to buy things that don't come in plastic.
- Reusing and re-purposing as much as I can: plastic boxes, plastic bags, paper, glass, etc.
- Reducing electricity use (turning off everything that shouldn't be working.)
- Reusing water from shower for the garden.
- Eco-friendly products. (Still haven't converted in everything.)
- Growing herbs and vegetables in my tiny garden.
- Using public transportation instead of car.
- Cooking more at home instead of eating out or ordering in.
In the upcoming year, 2011, I would like to make further changes:
- I wish to use my car even less and work closer to home or live closer to work.
- I wish to make compost out of our leftovers, I feel bad throwing it away.
- Use less water and less electricity (it's now getting harder as we have a washing-machine, dishwasher, oven, air-conditioner, etc.)
- Grow more edible plants in my hopefully bigger garden.
- Reuse water from washing-machine.
- Convert to more eco-friendly products.
- Buy from local organic markets.
- Make more things at home and buy less.
- Buy an old house/apartment and renovate and not a new one.
- Become more politically involved.
I hope it will be a greener and better year.