When many of us think of going green, images of sacrifice tend to predominate. We think of going green as a hardship. The good news is that it doesn’t have to be that difficult. You really can take steps to live a greener lifestyle. And once you see how easy it is to make some changes, you might be encouraged to continue toward more sustainable living.
You don’t have to experience a green makeover overnight. Small steps in the right direction will help you develop long-term habits on your way to a greener future.
Here are 10 relatively painless things you can do to get started on a green lifestyle
- Pick your produce: Think about purchasing organic produce. At the very least, consider produce that is low in pesticides. You can also help out by buying produce from local sources — like farmer’s markets.
- Grow your own food: It really doesn’t take much to grow some of your own produce. You don’t have to have a huge garden, though. Start small with container gardening for small spaces, and start with plants that don’t require a lot of work.
- Bring your own bag: You can buy reusable shopping bags, but you don’t have to rely on the store. Use an old tote, or bring the plastic shopping bags from your last trip for reuse until they wear out. It won’t cost you anything, and you can live greener.
- Check the labels: When you buy organic items at the store, you need to be careful, since there are no uniform standards for certifying something “organic”. But you take a couple of minutes to check for these trusted labels: USDA Organic, Fair Trade Certified, Rainforest Alliance Certified, Green Seal and Certified Humane.
- Drink from a bottle: Not the “disposable” kind you buy at the store! Invest in a water bottle made from stainless steel (with a chemical free liner), and use that to keep you hydrated. Refill with filtered tap water, or from the drinking fountain. Most cities have more stringent tap water requirements than what you’ll find with “pure spring water” in plastic bottles, anyway.
- Solar powered outdoor lighting: You can take gradual steps toward solar power for use in your home. Start by converting your outdoor lighting to solar energy with floodlights, motion sensor lights, pathway lights and even bug zappers to the kind that charge up during the day with help from the sun.
- Counter-top composting: It’s really not stinky! There are a number of companies that make composters
meant for the counter-top. You can use them (usually ceramic with filters) for food scraps and then spread the resulting compost in your garden.
- Stop idling in your car: Avoid the drive-through window when possible. Idling puts pollution in the air, and uses resources. This is especially true when there is a long line at the window. Park your car, and walk into the building to conduct your transactions. You’ll get a little extra exercise as well.
- Reduce your junk mail: You can sign up with the Direct Marketing Association’s Mail Preference Service (dmaconsumers.org) to adjust your preferences regarding junk mail. You’ll be reducing the number of trees used, and you’ll be happier with fewer annoying advertisements in your mail box.
- Replace one meaty meal a week: Consult a vegetarian cookbook or vegetarian recipe site VegWeb.com for delicious recipes that don’t require meat. Replace one meat entree a week with a vegetarian entree. It’s a good way to start on a path of eating more fruits, vegetables and whole grains, as well as reducing your meat consumption, which takes a great deal of energy to bring to the table.
With a little extra mindfulness, it is possible to live a little greener — and maybe even feel a lot better! Check out our online store at Naturigy.com for thousands of other products for a green lifestyle!
8 Comments
You mentioned countertop composting but did not give any links to places where they can be purchased. If you know of good sources would you mind sharing? I took a look at your website but did not find anything there either. Thanks!
Yes. One of the best places to look for countertop composters is Gardeners.com. AllThingsRenewable.com and Amazon.com also have them. You can compare different prices on countertop composters at NextTag.com and Buy.com.
Bamboojones, we will add countertop composter to the store in the near future. In the meanwhile here are two examples of what I found on Amazon.com. Hopefully one of them suits your needs
1. Odor-Free Countertop Compost Container
– This seems to be a simple holding bin for your compostables in the kitchen but you need to transfer them to your outdoor compost bin or pile,
– This is a full featured indoor composter but I suggest you keep this under your sink or somewhere a little out of sight (next to your kitchen trash can, for example)
2. Kitchen Composter
Eating a vegetarian diet, or a mostly vegetarian diet (with only a bit of truly grass-fed cows, etc.) is also very green (to say nothing of the potential improvement in health) due to the enormous amounts of energy that go into the industrial rearing of animals for food. I’m hoping that the green consciousness will be one more weight tipping the scales in favor of more people eating vegetarian.
True. It is amazing how resource inefficient the meat industry is if you consider what goes into producing that one cheeseburger that you crave. But also think about what happens AFTER you have had your meal. Most of the vegetable scraps and leftovers can be safely recycled back to the earth. Even if you do not compost, you can just bury them in the ground and let it become feed for the worms who will than take care of fertilizing your lawn or garden. You will save on garbage disposal, generate less green house emissions (from garbage dumps and garbage pickup trucks), use less plastic bags, and need to buy less chemical fertilizers saving on money, toxic soil/leaching issues and petroleum use.
As a lighting designer and a small business owner of
[link edited: commeter name is linked] louielighting.com I wanted to comment on the importance of lighting quality as it relates to our children and adults. I believe we should strive for more efficient lighting solutions in schools but I do also have a concern that mandating changes too fast and the hype that surrounds this issue may result in the wrong implementation of lighting solutions and in sacrifices in light quality that I believe is so important to our well being. It takes time for new technologies to mature and to be fully understood by the professionals like lighting designers, electrical engineers, architects, interior designers and the public in general. It takes time to experience the new lighting solutions in order to implement them correctly into our schools, homes and other lighting projects.
Caution needs to be practiced in banning traditional light sources and time needs to be given for the industry to transition so that our future does not look like those futuristic movies that show cold dark streets and spaces with blue green fluorescent or neon lights.
Respectfully,
Arie Louie
Yes Solar power is the easiest and cheapest form of lighting why not use the sun its free and your home and garden will look great at night.
I am a certified commercial energy auditor, and I believe that energy conservation is the best place to start your own “green movement.” It can be simple, inexpensive, and painless. Usually it just takes a little change of habit, and after a little repetition you won’t even think about it anymore. Here are a few ideas to get the ball rolling:
Turn out the lights when you leave the room.
Change filters on your furnace & air conditioners… regularly.
Lower the thermostat 2 degrees in the winter and raise it 2 in the summer.
Keep refrigerator and freezer full.
Close window shades on hot summer days to reduce solar gain, and at night during winter to retain heat.
Unplug chargers when not in use to eliminate “phantom load.”
Well, there’s the tip of the iceberg. Remember, recycle, reuse, and most importantly, reduce!
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