Green Livin'

I found this image on someone else's blog (it was RepublicanTreeHugger actually), and thought it was clever. "From a time when conservation was patriotic".

I find I go back and forth in how passionate I'm feeling about green living. We're good about some things and lazy about others. I have no problem doing the easy stuff, but if it's going to take me a while to figure out how something works to make it more green, I tend to drop off the map. I hope to fix this.

In honor of Earth Day, here are some things we do that I think take almost no extra effort, but if everyone did them it would make a big difference environmentally. Some of these don't have a direct tie to the environment, but maybe they minimize waste and benefit it indirectly. (It's all connected anyway.)

We're good at the easy stuff:

• Using our own canvas grocery bags instead of plastic ones (and when we forget them, we re-use the plastic ones as trash bags in our kitchen)


• Flushing the toilet only as needed (you know what I mean...)


• Turning down the heat a few degrees and wearing our long underwear


• Using cloth diapers and wipes for Jude (though this one's a toss-up -- we save space in landfills, but use more water. It's more of a green choice in warmer months when we can save energy by line-drying them too.)


• Making our own green cleaners out of baking soda, vinegar and castile soap (this is a lot easier than it sounds... really)


• Using re-usable bowl covers for leftovers instead of plastic wrap


• Recycling paper, plastic and glass
  


• Watching our consumption by only buying things we feel are valid needs, and shopping second-hand on Craigslist.


• We buy used in general. Used house, used car, used clothes for Jude... etc.


• We've traveled to a lot of different countries, but in general we don't go on elaborate vacations. We usually hike or camp wherever we end up instead of staying in hotels or resorts.


• During the summer we grow a lot of our own vegetables organically and go to the farmer's market, so we spend less on food too, with no adverse environmental effects.
  
• Installing a more efficient furnace to heat the house, and using our fireplace to warm up the downstairs
  
• Walking or biking places rather than driving in the warmer months.


• Driving the smallest vehicle we can that will fit two people, potentially two carseats, a dog and camp gear into (we've opted for a wagon).


• Leaving the oven door open after cooking to heat the kitchen.


• Replacing some of our light bulbs with fluorescents. We're about 50/50 now, because I feel like we need to use the old ones up first.


• Turning the lights off after leaving a room (duh).
  

We're bad at the harder stuff:

• We still buy some non-local fruit, vegetables and other food, especially in the winter. This is wasteful because there's a lot of time, money and gas that goes in to getting us a banana in January.
  
• We still buy a lot of non-organic food to save money, the production of which uses pesticides and chemicals that harm the earth.


• We eat meat and eggs that probably come from factory farms that are bad for animal welfare and the environment. I want to start getting these things from small, local farmers, but haven't gotten around to it yet. Lazy.


• We can't yet afford a green vehicle. Even though ours is smaller and more efficient than say, a giant SUV, we're still driving a conventional oil/gas one.
  
• We live in an old, drafty, uninsulated house, so when we heat it, some of that heat is wasted as it escapes from nooks and crannies.


• Even though we may not stay in fancy hotels, we still drive our oil-guzzling car or take a gas-guzzling airplane to go to faraway places.


• When I do buy new clothes, I tend to buy them from "cheap" stores because I don't want to pay the up-front costs for organic cotton or hemp. Some of my clothes are probably made in sweat shops, and harmful chemicals are used to grow the cotton or other fibers that go into them.
  
• Not all of our appliances are very efficient energy-wise. Some of them are old and wasteful (especially our dryer).

One thing that bothers me is when "being green" starts to seem like it's for rich people. I know there are valid reasons why organic food is more expensive and hybrid vehicles aren't cheap, but I can't help but wonder why, at the root of it, things that are good for humans and the earth aren't naturally the best economic choices as well. Yet another reason to hope the green lifestyle thing gets more popular and sticks. If we drive up demand for these products, prices will go down.

Are you doing something easy that could make a big impact if more people did it? Or something I put on my "hard" list that you've conquered and find it isn't as much of a hassle as you thought?