1. Really? Are people really still holding out and not doing what's right for our planet? I can barely believe it. People really tihnk that landfills will just go away and that it doesn't matter what we spew into our air and water? Really? People don't "believe in" peak oil? It astounds me.
2. I recently recycled some flourescent light bulbs, doing my part for the environment. Our school doesn't even recycle them. How can our school system knowingly put mercury into the landfills? Find out what your school does with their flourescent bulbs (or CF's) and contact your school board if they're not being recycled. That's on my to-do list today!
3. Gas prices are predicted to hit an all-time high next week. I paid $3.18 per gallon yesterday filling the Prius for around $30. Hopefully it will be back down by the time I need to fill it again. If you need to fill up, do it now. Maybe walk to where you need to go and conserve that energy. I am going to see if I can find somebody to tune up my bike for me!
4. Yes, my house needs new doors and windows. I am campaigning with hubby to get those replaced this summer. If I can get my picture window replaced so that the sun doesn't heat up the room to 80ºF every afternoon, we could manage our heating and cooling bills a bit better. Do you have decent doors and windows at your house?
5. Programmable thermostats are also on my to-do list. We have the old gold-colored dial type and we have 3 thermostats in our tiny house. No matter what we do, the house continues to heat unevenly. Maybe some insulation and the low-E windows will help with that, but the thermostats will save us tons of money and save energy.
6. It's recycle day for our garbage collection today. I've got boxes, newspapers, cans, bottles, and wood planks out there. Are you recycling everything you CAN? (pun intended).
7. Composting. I need to get started on composting. Where do I buy one of those tubs that i can rotate? I've seen them in catalogs, but I need to find something locally - save delivery costs and also emissions that way. Putting the composting issue on my to-do list today as well. Hope they aren't too expensive!
8. Sustainable burial. No, I'm not kidding. This is one of my interests. It creeps me out that we put our dead into Tupper-ware like boxes, after pumping them full of perservatives, and then lower them inside concrete vaults to preserve them undergroun. What are we saving them for? Whatever happened to "dust to dust"? Last summer at the MREA Sustainable Living Fair I learned that an unpreserved and properly buried body will become part of the earth within 2 years naturally. Also that states do not have laws requiring they Tupper-ization of bodies, although most people are under the impression that their are health department codes but mostly it's just custom and a billable service.
9. My kid is excited about going on a garbage-bag walk later today. We do this when the mood strikes throughout the year, but especially on Earth Day. My litlte hippie makes me so proud when she asks to go on one, I can rarely refuse her. Just grab a bag and go on a nice walk picking up litter. I'm sure we look geeky, but I'm not really out to impress anybody, except for mini-me!
10. I'm going to see if I can go car-less today, but I haven't figured out yet how I'm going to get to my noon PTO board meeting yet.
Please post replies with other ideas of things we can each do to make our environment a more enjoyable and sustainable place to live. These are some of the top-of-my list things that I've been thinking about these days. Now, I must remove myself from the laptop and go take care of my family/home for the day. Wouldn't today be a great day to invest in solar energy? Go buy some stock!
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5 comments:
*I* am recycling everything I can, but sometimes, I see the city sends trash trucks to collect our recycling. My guess is that it's more cost-efficient for the city to dump it all than to recycle. I'm calling my town about this.
The whole Tupperware-ization of bodies creeps me right the ***K out. We're being cremated; end of story.
You might check your local nursery for composting barrels.
Buy Energy Star appliances, doors, windows etc...
We added new insulation, doors, windows, still have a few more windows to replace, even Energy Star storm doors will make a differance. New insualtion makes a BIG differance!
People think I am crazy , but I can't stand to see good furniture in the trash pile,lol esp. wood furniture, I have picked up some really nice things, and running out of room for some items, I am trying to talk dh into letting me open a store with things I find and redo :)
One thing we can do is to spend more time in nature. This sounds too obvious to even mention, but many people simply don't spend time outdoors except to walk from their car to a building.
Even sitting on the front step in the evening is good. Keeps the TV turned off, doesn't cost a cent, and it's the best mental-health medicine I know of.
I have gotten big into recycling in the last year and I'm making an effort to conserve electricity. I keep the air off as long as I can and the heat set to use the least amount of energy. Our biggest money saver was the new furnace a few years ago. Gas bills went from $350 to $75! I wish we could walk or bike, but I can't take three kids on a bike and we're too far to walk anywhere other than walking for the sake of walking.
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