Earth Day- Every Day

In honor of Earth Day I thought I'd write a post about what changes I've made around the house to help reduce waste... and help save the Earth. I'm surprised at how easy these changes have been! Try them or others out yourself and let me know how it goes.

1. Recycle more: I checked what could be recycled and realized there were things I was throwing in the landfill that could be recycled (cereal boxes, junk mail, etc) Everything that goes in the trash is condensed to be flat as possible.

2. Cleaning with safer products: I switched to vintager and water and Melaleuca Ecoscence products (www.melaleuca.com)

3. Saving rain water: under our downspouts we're in the process of getting rain barrels

4. Composting: All those fruit & veggie scraps go in the compost bin instead of creating Methane in the landfill.

5. Unplug: I never realized how much energy is wasted by leaving unused appliances and such plugged in. So every morning after I make coffee, the maker gets unplugged and the coffee goes in a thermos to stay warm, after that I unglug Keir's laptop computer cords.

6. Shut the shades: this winter we shut the shades at night to keep the cold out and warmth in and will do the same once the sun starts beating in during the day.

7. Reusing: we try to think of other ways to reuse the containers that go in the trash/recycling (egg cartons- give to chicken farmer, milk jugs- home-made bubble mix, rain water for indoor plants, etc)

8. Buy groceries from local farmers and the farmers market to cut down on fuel emissions, etc.

9. Carpool! Keir carpools with 4 other guys to work only driving one week per month.

10. Reuse clothes; Griffin uses many hand-me-downs which not only saves money but uses the clothes for their lifetime. Thanks Molly & Meg!

11. Air out: open the windows to better the indoor quality of air (esp. when cleaning and vacuuming!)

12. Save a dish: I eat my ice cream out of the container (and that saves A LOT of dishes!) I usually eat the container b4 anyone else gets a dish anyway. And I have a new one waiting just for company.:-)
Any other ideas you do? Please share!