When is a Purple Woman Green?
I watched part of the Live Earth concert series this past weekend. The music and media stars who participated in the concerts in New York, Tokyo, Shanghai, Johannesburg, Hamburg, London, Rio de Janeiro, Sydney, and Washington waived their appearance fees and pledged to cut their CO2 emissions.
So I am inspired to come up with new ways to reduce my personal environmental footprint.
Hmmmm. I already recycle; I bought the expensive "sundowner" windows for the house to save energy; I carpool when I can; I changed all the exterior lights to the energy-saving ones. But I can do more.
I pledge to use cloth bags for groceries. I pledge to refill my plastic water bottles instead of buying more. I pledge to continue taking my birth control pills.
Looking back on my Fourth of July week on the beach—all those discarded swim diapers, styrofoam coolers, and plastic beach toys—I’m thinking that my birth control pledge might be the easiest and best one yet.
Technorati Tag: Childfree
6 comments:
You might want to consider getting a reusable thermos instead of the plastic bottle. The plastic is NOT good for you and the minute the heat hits the bottle the chemicals start becoming even more damaging. Recycle the plastic, and buy a thermos and fill it with cold filtered water from home instead (if you want to, of course)--that's what we do and it works great!
Congrats on your other earth friendly habits and pledges, it's awesome that you are doing that!
m--good advice on the plastic bottle. If you've ever left a half bottle of water in a hot car for a few hours, you'll know what M means. It changes the taste. I imagine the chemicals leaching into the water. Yuck!
Way to go! Two other tips come to mind: 1) Go vegan or vegetarian. Meat production is very hard on the planet. 2) Ride a bicycle or electric bicycle (e-bike). I think one of the big advantages (to me) of being childfree is that I don't have to pick up children after work, making bicycle commuting much easier. If you find hills too challenging or don't want to sweat much, get an e-bike. An e-bike gives you exercise without the exhaustion. Plus, they're so much fun.
Amy--E-bike? I'll have to check that out. I put my new mountain bike under the Angel tree at the mall when we moved to the top of a ridge. The hills were too steep for me. But an E-bike...well that might just work!
Thanks, great suggestions here!
Good turns all. My husband and I pledge to fill our various pitchers with water and offer cups to guests instead of water bottles. We have filtered from the tap. I just hate picking up all the 1/2 full ones after a backyard party. What a waste! Ug, I admit, we plan to offer plastic cups...
I just "replaced" my clothes dryer with an umbrella-style clothes line. My schedule allows for doing this kind of laundry. Really making a difference on our summer utilities bill.
My husband is a hunter/gatherer type. We eat everything he brings home. The freezer is always full.
I have to check-out the e-bike!
Thanks for this thoughtful post LauraS, and to everyone for their comments!
Please remember that compact flourescent bulbs contain mercury and should never be disposed of in the traditional way (i.e. the garbage can). Also if you have any fondness for american people who work in manufacturing, there are NO compact flourescent bulbs made in the US. I believe most, if not all, of them are made in China, which doesn't have a good record of treating it's workers well at all.
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