Are You Green?

I'll be the first person to admit that I'm not (or historically haven't been) what you'd call a 'green' person. By 'green', I mean earth friendly. I have long regarded people that were into earth friendliness as tree hugging, left wing liberals that had no understanding of what it takes to grow an economy and no regard for the beliefs that I hold dear when it comes to things like religion and/or politics. Recently, however, I've been reevaluating my stance.

I was alarmed recently when I read a statistic that said that only 50% of the households in Matthews recycle. Britney and I are faithful recyclers of all our paper, plastic, and cans. Why? Because it's really easy and it's our nod to trying to help out a little. Given that we all have to take our trash out to the street each week anyway, is it really too much to ask to at least segregate your trash and throw the recylables into a different container? Apparently 50% of us in Matthews think it is too much to ask. That's pretty weak.

I also recently heard on NPR that the city of San Francisco is preparing to outlaw plastic grocery bags. Why? Because they are virtually impossible to do anything with. They're so flimsy that they are hard to reuse and they're so 'fly away' that their hard to recycle in any large quantity. Do you know where most of them end up (even IF you throw them in the recycle bin)? They end up being shipped in bulk to third world countries where there are more lax regulations regarding air quality and they end up being burned. Paper bags? Not much better. They're extremely expensive to produce, cause a TON of pollution (50 times more pollutants than plastic bags!), require trees to be cut down, etc.

So...what to do about this mess? I'm not prepared (yet) to start a compost heap in my backyard or stop flushing if it's not a #2 (some recommend this practice - I'm against it). I am, however, willing to do the following:

- Buy some reusable grocery bags (they cost like $2.00) and stop getting paper OR plastic

- Turn off the water while I brush my teeth (saves 3 gallons of water per day)

- Put a plastic quart bottle of water in my toilet tank (45% of the water you use in your home goes down the toilet or shower drain and this reduces the amount flushed by 1/3)

- Use recycled ink cartridges in my printer (it's cheaper AND eco-friendly)

That's just a start. Are you willing to do anything? Do you care? You should! If you want some ideas on how to make minor changes that make a big difference (and don't require you to stop showering and join a hippie commune), check out these sites for ideas:

Ideal Bite - http://www.idealbite.com
EcoJoes - http://www.ecojoes.com
TreeHugger - http://www.treehugger.com