Green Life - Taking those first small steps

Making small changes as and when you can puts you firmly on the road to

living a much greener lifestyle. Trying to jump into it all at once can be counterproductive, in fact, because the subject area is immense and is growing all the

time. Instead, decide what your priorities are: Think about where it would be

easiest for you to begin. Start there, and work up to the bigger or more difficult

issues.

Your priorities may not be the same as other people’s, but that’s okay:

They’re yours, and you’re entitled to them. Be prepared to adjust them as

new information becomes available, however. Research is ongoing in most

areas of green living, so arguments will change. In the meantime, take one

small step every time you’re ready to, and keep aspiring to be greener.

We chose them specifically because they make you significantly greener with minimal effort. Examples include replacing your light bulbs as they burn out with compact fluorescent models and replacing your cleaning supplies as they run out with environmentally friendly ones.

Another tip that’s super-easy to implement is to buy items with less packaging.

Consider, for example, what would happen if you bought toilet paper in

double rolls, which contain twice as much toilet paper in a roll than regularsize

rolls. That cuts down the number of cardboard tubes inside the rolls by

half, and it also decreases the amount of plastic that’s used to wrap the packages!

If you recycle the cardboard tubes that remain, even better.

And if you slit the plastic wrap open only at the top of the package, you can reuse the wrap, perhaps as a trash bag. See how easy that was?

As you read through this book, jot down a list of actions that you could see

yourself taking fairly easily. When you have a list, it’s easier to prioritize the

tasks so that you don’t feel you need to tackle them all at once.

Turning Green Choices into Habits around Your Home

Reducing, reusing, repairing, and recycling are the four most important

actions when it comes to adopting a greener lifestyle because they all contribute

to conserving the Earth’s resources.

Tips throughout this book help you reduce your consumption of everything from packaged goods to energy.

Your home is one of the best places to start making green living changes

because you have the control to make the choices that are best for you.

Along with energy efficiency, water conservation is a major issue, and it’s

where you can really make a difference. Between the source and your faucet,

water has to be pumped at various stages, and that takes energy, as does the

process of treating the water. If you conserve water, you do double-duty by

conserving both water and energy, and that helps to reduce the amount of

carbon emissions pumped into the atmosphere.

Most of the water used in homes — whether it’s for flushing, washing, cleaning,

or drinking — is processed to the point of being high-quality drinking

water. Although systems do exist to divert greywater (water that’s been used

in sinks, for example, for hand or dishwashing) to toilets for flushing, they’re

not yet a common feature of home building and renovations.

However, you can make a difference by preventing as much good-quality water as possible from running down the drain into the sewers from where it has to be

reprocessed back into drinking-quality water.

When it comes to waste, reduce what you buy as much as possible — including

choosing the least amount of packaging possible — as this will naturally

reduce the waste you generate.

Then assess your waste to see what can be reused or recycled — what’s waste to you may be useful to your friends and neighbors or to a nonprofit group.

Of course, your home extends to your yard, as well.

Making Your Greenbacks Even Greener

When it comes to spending and saving money, your dollars can go a long way

toward greening your lifestyle. Start with the necessities of life — choosing

what you eat and what you wear — and assess how you can do both in ways

that are both socially and environmentally responsible. Then expand these

issues to the banking arena, looking at where you can park your money and

how you can invest your savings to help you as well as your community

and the planet.

Shopping greenly and ethically Shopping is a great opportunity to make your lifestyle more sustainable.

Choose the greenest options available to you, such as food produced using

as few chemicals as possible, grown locally in season, and transported over

as short a distance as possible to reduce the amount of fuel used.

Other green options include clothes made from organically produced materials,

goods made from recycled materials rather than resources that have to be

mined from the earth, secondhand or vintage goods, and those made from

biodegradable materials.

Ethical issues, including how the people and animals involved in the production

processes were treated, are also important to consider. Ask stores

whether the workers, producers, suppliers, and farmers involved in the production

chain are paid fairly, have good working conditions, and can sustain

their production (meaning that they have enough left after feeding themselves

and their families to maintain their premises or buy new equipment

and seeds).

Avoiding goods produced using child labor or in sweatshop working conditions also may be a priority for you. Animal welfare is a growing concern as well; consider choosing meat and dairy products that come from animals raised in humane conditions rather than intensively farmed, overcrowded pens and cages.

Support your local community socially and economically by buying your

food, gifts, crafts, home items, and clothes from local producers and businesses.

If that’s not possible, look for Fairtrade-certified products that assure

you that growers and producers were treated fairly.