Green & Clean

1. I will relinquish my title of Most Likely to Acquire Useless Crap I Don’t Wear or Need.
Admit it — your closet is full of had-to-have items that have been punished to a life of hanging unworn. Your have enough notepads, pens, books, magnets, and collectible tchotchkes to fill a mini storage unit. Yes, our purchases keep the economy going, but most of us buy far more than we need. (There are whole TV shows dedicated to demonstrating ways to unclutter!) Remember that packaging, waste, and pollution are created to make these items available to you. If you trash those once-new goodies when you’re no longer interested in them, they will live in a landfill for years and years. It’s time to clean out, and stop the crap collecting.

2. I will avenge my phantom load.
Phantom load has nothing to do with the pounds that mysteriously appeared on your midsection over the holidays. The term refers to the energy wasted by electronics and power chargers when they are plugged in but not in use. That’s right — your computer cord, cell phone charger, and time-telling DVD player are all sucking energy from the outlet even when there isn’t anything attached or being watched (hence the spooky phantom-ness). Actually cut the power to your electronics by plugging them in to a power strip and flipping the switch to off when you’re not watching or listening.

3. I will be smarter than bottled water companies and drink for free what they are trying to sell me.
Kicking the plastic water bottle habit might sound like an impossible feat if you’re as addicted as the average thirsty American; last year we consumed about 50 billion plastic water bottles. If the fact that plastic is bad for the environment doesn’t get you to quit, just think: Several bottled water brands use the same H20 that’s available from your faucet. So buy an eco-chic reusable stainless steel bottle, and refill it throughout the day — for free. If you’re parched at the mere thought of quitting cold turkey, ease into a plastic-bottle–free life by bringing one less bottle a week to the gym, or by giving them up at the office.

4. If I can remember to TiVo “Dancing with the Stars,” I can remember to bring my own bags to the grocery store.
It’s as if plastic shopping bags are required to exit a store—the disposable sacks are forced on customers even when the purchase is just a can of soda. But plastic bags are made from petroleum and only about 1 percent of the estimated 500 billion to 1 trillion Annie Bell plastic bags consumed worldwide are recycled each year. Most end up in landfills (where they take perhaps 1000 years to decompose) or in the sea. If you start bringing your own bags now, you’ll be ahead of the curve if plastic ones become outlawed in your community.

5. I will switch to recycled paper products at home (but not if they make me chafe).
We know there are some folks out there who must have two-ply, but even you can commit to changing just one thing. If you have a Larry David-like aversion to recycled toilet paper, try the paper towels. If brown won’t match your kitchen colors, look for recycled paper towels that are whitened without chlorine or stick with washable dishcloths. By purchasing recycled paper products you’re preventing trees from being chopped down, and paper waste from ending up in landfills. In addition, less energy and water is required to produce a recycled paper product.

6. I will consider whether my meal came from the farm or the factory.
Big agriculture isn’t all bad. Everyone has a guilty culinary pleasure that comes from a big factory.  But while you’re worrying about your own carbon footprint, remember that your food has one too. Think of how many miles your food has traveled (do you really need berries from Chile?), how many chemicals are used, and how much pollution and waste have been generated in the production of your foodstuffs. Support local agriculture by shopping for food at a farmers market. The goods will be fresh, and you might enjoy meeting some of the people who grew your dinner.

7. I will take a day off from road rage and take mass transit or car-pool one day a week.
If you have public transportation options available to you, try switching to the train or bus one day a week. According to the American Public Transportation Association, public transportation use saves 1.4 billion gallons of gasoline each year, and can reduce household expenses by $6,200. Plus you’ll get a day off from road rage. If you don’t live near public transportation, try organizing a once-a-week carpool with your neighbors or coworkers. You’ll save on fuel, tolls, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by removing cars from the road. As a bonus, you’ll gain access to that exclusive carpool lane.

I found this on Greenwala.com by Elizah Leigh and thought you might find some humor in it….

You Might Be A Greenie If….

…you’ve managed to reduce the volume of waste that your household produces to such an impressive degree that your garbage man occasionally knocks on your front door just to make sure that you’re still breathing.

…you haven’t bought a new piece of clothing in years because everything you own finally came back in style again.

…you reuse the same tea bag so many times that the water in your cup finally reverts back to its clear color once again.

…you get a little giddy every time you go out into your backyard to turn your compost pile.

…you’ve accumulated so many reusable shopping bags that the weight of them in the back seat of your car has negatively affected your gas mileage.

…you try to repurpose confounding items such as used Band-Aids, the small plastic safety caps from your diabetic cat’s insulin needles and the Silica packets from all of your herbal supplements.

…you’ve frozen so many leftovers that you ran out of conventional containers, forcing you to pre-portion food into makeshift dried corn husk parcels bound with rubberbands you’ve saved from bunches of store-bought broccoli.

…you run through so much white vinegar in your household that you’ve got Heinz on speed dial.

…you don’t need no stinking plastic bottles or supposedly eco-friendly yet BPA-lined SIGG aluminum containers when your ceramic mug wrapped with a holy sock cozy has served you quite well, thank you very much.

…you think that going part-time veg is pretty cool since it gives you a good excuse to finally make those quinoa-seeweed-okra crocquets that your full-time veggie friend constantly raves about.

…you’ve used the same razor cartridge for two years ever since you learned that if you pat it dry between each use, it stays practically as sharp as day one.

…you are intent on creating a bountiful assortment of diverse household plant specimens with very little out-of-pocket expense simply by sprouting pineapple tops, peach-avocado-mango-apple seeds and multiple random clippings from your local botanical gardens (that you secretly pinched off with your fingernails).

…your idea of the latest, greatest blockbuster experience is watching “Food, Inc.” and “No Impact Man” while snacking on your own organically grown dehydrated heirloom veggie chips…but Pirate’s Booty will do in a pinch, too.

…you document the color depth and decomposition rate of your soon-to-be black gold via regular updates to all of your social networks.

…you habitually rescue improperly discarded recyclable materials from public garbage receptacles and no longer notice or care that everyone seems to think that you are a homeless person.

…just for fun, you run after people clutching their improperly discarded recyclable materials in the air while yelling, “Excuse me, you forgot this!!!”

…accidentally shattered pieces of your fine China make you secretly smile (rather than gasp) since you finally have an excuse to mosaic your newspaper collection bin.

…you scrub your organically grown produce so vigorously that it screams out, “I swear there’s no more Salmonella or E coli on me!!”

…you get excited about squirreling away banana peels, coffee grounds, eggshells and teabags into a cute little countertop composting container.

…you rack your brains trying to figure out how every single one of your houseplants got mysteriously infested with microscopic black flies before finally realizing that your cute little countertop composting container is a breeding factory.

…you laugh maniacally as you place small ramekins of vinegar around your plants in an effort to snuff out said microscopic black flies — drink this, beeyotches!!

…as soon as the holiday season is over, you begin admiring seed catalogs (the way would-be-brides drool over wedding magazines) and plot the strategy that will ensure that your organic garden blows the roof off the hiz-zouse.

…after struggling to start 68 different varieties of seeds in saved eggshells and painstakingly hand-rolled newspaper pots, you come to terms with the fact that your 3% success rate will at least yield enough food for your hamster…which is a good thing, otherwise you might have popped an artery.

…washed, air dried and hand ironed aluminum foil is as common a sight in your kitchen as the reused zip top bags that you bought back in the 90s.

…you lust for a full photovoltaic system but due to current budgetary restraints, you settle for making a few homemade solar panels out of a collection of saved pizza boxes wrapped with many, many hand ironed sheets of your washed, recycled aluminum foil.

…you have a poster of Ed Begley, Jr. in your garage and still consider Daryl Hannah to be one of the original nature girls despite the fact that her face appears to be the victim of multiple plastic surgeries and about 3289 micrograms of Botox.

…paper towels are a distant memory ever since you discovered that holy socks work way better…plus, you always seem to have an endless supply of them on hand (ha ha).

…you triumphantly pour pasta water, canned veggie liquid and household “grey” water into the landscaping materials around your house and give your household plants a good long drink everytime enough water collects at the bottom of your dish draining rack.

…sometimes, just sometimes, you wonder why people claim to crave Twinkies or Pop Tarts when the organic raw spirulina bars that you found in the bulk bin of your local natural food co-op taste like perfectly sublime brownies on acid…shhhh, it’s your little secret.

…you sit down in front of your computer to read the morning’s green news and somehow, you rarely ever finish until nightfall.

…your idea of a great date is walking to the farmer’s market with your main squeeze (even if it’s a 7.4 mile round trip that takes half the day to complete) just so you can ensure that the locally grown goodies you purchase have the lowest carbon footprint possible.

…it’s never enough to follow just 8745 green/eco Twitterers — you’re constantly on the lookout for new green resources so that you’ve really and truly got all of your bases covered.

…you choose to make (rather than buy) all of your own toiletries using supplies from your cupboard…mayo and baking soda anyone?

…you think that sorting through all of your recyclable household items is actually kind of fun, plus you find great satisfaction in adding removed paper labels from cans and glass jars to your newspaper bin.

…shopping at the store takes 3 times as long as the mere mortal because you scrutinize every label and keep a running tally of “brands to boycott”.

…you have no need to purchase wrapping paper or bows since everything necessary to dress up your homemade or re-gifted treasures can be found in your recycling station.

…you’ve actually grown fond of that line-dried crunchy towel sensation and purposely leave the vinegar and/or baking soda out of the wash rinse cycle.

…you are fully capable of engaging in a 2 hour long debate on why high fructose corn syrup is the bane of our existence.

…you purposely avoid consuming even organic corn on the cob ever since you learned that it commonly cross pollinates with neighboring GM corn crops and find that if you close your eyes while chewing on soaked organic barley, it is a fair substitution.

…you actually like the texture and flavor of Tofurkey and are convinced that it tastes almost as good as organically raised beef…er pork, yes pork.

…you chart your daily household carbon output via spreadsheet, constantly challenging yourself to beat your all-time record of .00241115 tons (which was accomplished when everyone left the house to visit relatives for two days).

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