Saturday, April 5, 2008

why i struggle with going green


I recently went to a sight about going green and it had a quiz to see how many "green leaves" i had determined by how many questions about my green habits I could answer. I got 27 leaves. It is not great but i realized that I could do better but do i want to?
My problem with going 'greener' is that i have trouble giving up certain things such as showers everyday, not flushing the toilet when i go pee, recycling (in a recycle unfriendly area), biking to work (it may not be far to work but that's because i take the freeway), our two vehicles (but when they die we are thinking are getting hybrids).

I must state that there are many things Carl and I have done in order to be 'greener'. such as...
  1. walking when something is close (like the grocery store, the bars, the bank, and many eateries)
  2. buying recyclable bags to use at the grocery store (we do have to remember to bring them though, and often we just go without any bag and just carry our stuff in our arms)
  3. replacing most of our light bulbs with fluorescents
  4. not using any heat or cooling in our place (blankets in the winter and cool breezes in the summer keep our temps bearable, plus we live in San Diego)
  5. using refillable bottles (i just changed from my Nalgene bottles to Kleen Kanteen and Sigg and it was costly, over $50, in order to avoid the possibility of plastic leaching
  6. we try not to buy too much new stuff and donate our old stuff, as much as possible
We are trying like you can see and there are many other things we intend to do such as buying from farmers markets, getting energy-star appliances, using other house products that don't introduce harmful chemicals into our home, and composting. Some of these things can be started now but many won't be implemented until we get our own home because as renters we can't do certain things (composting!). oh well, we are trying and hope to do better over time. It is easier then in the past since it is now everywhere.

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