Health, Taken Seriously

Earth Day is on Tuesday. This is a great time to evaluate how earth-friendly your lifestyle is and make a commitment to doing something good for the earth. Last year, I created a list of all the environmentally friendly things my husband and I had done up to that point. Here it is:

1. Switch as many lightbulbs in our house as we could to compact fluorescent ones. In the past year, we switched nine and put lower wattage bulbs in five different fixtures. Note: Never throw these into the trash because they contain mercury.
2. Grow a garden. We built a garden bed last summer and grew some herbs in it, but this summer we will grow our first vegetables. The seedlings are planted and growing right now inside the warmth of our house.
3. Use cloth bags at the grocery store. We buy the ones sold at Whole Foods and Wild Oats. At an estimated 5 grocery bags a week, we save 260 plastic bags each year from being used once and tossed. It also cuts down on the energy and resources that go into making those plastic bags in the first place. If we buy only a couple items at other stores, we asked that they not be bagged.
4. Use cloth napkins and washable cloths in the kitchen and dining room. In 7 years, we have only bought one container of paper napkins!
5. Switch to only environmentally friendly, non-toxic household cleaners. We have switched almost every cleaner in our house–dishsoap, automatic dish detergent, laundry detergent, kitchen cleaners, bathroom cleaners, toilet bowl cleaners, etc.
6. Switch to environmentally friendly body products. This is more important for our health than the health of the earth, but every little bit helps. We’ve switched to natural shampoos, lotions, handcleaners, sunblocks, and toothpastes.
7. Cut down on junkmail. We have signed up to have our names removed from mailing lists and call individual companies that send us catalogs or credit card applications and ask to be taken off their mailing list. It’s amazing how much less junk mail we get now!
8. Buy organic! We have slowly been making this transition for the past 7 years. We started with organic dairy, eggs, and poultry. We have now switched to buying almost entirely organic produce and other products as well (cereal, crackers). We also try to buy local and buy products with minimal packaging (ever bought your cereal in a bag instead of a box?)
9. Use cloth diapers. This has been one of the most satisfying ways to help our planet. We have used cloth diapers on our first son for over two years now, saving thousands of diapers from ever being produced or ending up in landfills. At 6-10 diapers a day, this has a huge impact! In addition, we have helped convince several friends and neighbors to use cloth too.
10. Cut out plastics as much as possible. Certain types of plastics (the ones to avoid are PVC (#3), PS (#6), and PC (#7)) contain dangerous chemicals that leak into our environment and food. We have made a serious effort to buy as few plastic toys as possible (especially for ones that our children mouth), switched to glass baby bottles when our first son was 6 months old, and have switched to glass or safer plastic food and water containers.
11. Plant a tree! We planted an Autumn Blaze Maple in our front yard.

Here are the things we did this past year:

1. Built a huge compost bin and started composting. This has been enormously satisfying. Every other day, we take out a huge container worth of food scraps to the compost bin. Our next door neighbors use it as well. It took about 9 months for the scraps to begin composting but it’s now actually turning into gorgeous soil. And it smells really good, like a forest. It’s amazing how 9 months worth of “trash” for two homes has now become nutrient rich soil.
2. Planted a garden. Last summer, we planted enough tomato plants to get at least one tomato every day for 2-3 months. We also planted herbs, zucchinis, squash, and various peppers. But the tomatoes were by far my favorite.
3. Started re-using all our cloth diapers on our second son. I had a friend repair the elastic in our pocket diapers and we’re re-using our stash again. It was amazing to save all those disposable diapers from landfills with our first child, and even more amazing to do it again with our second. By the time we are done with diapers, we will have saved ourselves over $2000 and 10,000 disposable diapers from landfills!
4. Wrapped our water heater with insulating foam. This cost us less than $30.
5. Switched our conventional pet-food to one made with responsibly raised meat. Neither our cat food nor dog food now contains any animal by-products, rendered meat, factory farmed meat, antibiotics, growth hormones, or artificial colors/flavors/preservatives. Our pet food is also made locally.
6. Started donating monthly to an Environmental group in our state. Many states have a similar organization–California, Colorado, Oregon, Michigan, etc.
7. Bought both my boys all organic bedding.
8. Just this weekend, my husband bought a bike.  He has a new job that is less than 7 miles from our house and he plans on biking to work every day.

This year, it’s our goal to build our new home to be as environmental friendly as possible. We are looking into water-based wood treatments, recycled carpet, a tankless water heater, low-VOC paints, etc. I am also starting an Environment category on this blog. In addition to human health, I will be posting more articles on environmental health as well.

What about you?? What have you done so far? What will you do this year? Is there something you can do this week in honor of Earth Day? If you have any good ideas that I have not shared above, please post them in the comment section. I would love new ideas for ways to be more green.