Going Green Does Not Mean Difficult: Easy Steps to Green Up

by Christopher Pyle⁽⁵⁾
Action Whitewater Adventures

There is a debate about global warming. Some feel there isn't such a thing. I know where I stand on the issue, as most of us do. We each know our position. Rarely are we middle of the road. Whether you're firmly in the YES, the globe is warming or NO, the globe is doing it's normal cycle, I believe there are some things we can agree upon. We can agree, these things are just good for the world around us, simple to do and easy enough to employ without feeling forced or as if we're taking up some cause.

I think the focus on cleaning things up is a good, a positive. You could drive yourself crazy trying to have no carbon footprint but there are some things we can do that are simple, many are even free.

Much of daily lives are surrounded by technological advances that made aspects of life easier. Think about the napkin. A simple, mass produced paper product that made take-away food much, much easier. Paper towels? So very convenient. Now we realize how much wood is required to make our throw away face wiping products. At our home, we gone back to tea towels. We throw them in with laundry we would be doing anyway and we're reusing towel. As a special bonus, cloth is so much nicer on my baby fresh face!

Get back into local foods. Often you'll find these are all natural and/or organic foods. I've found some people recoil from these terms, as if I'm trying to convert them into something uncivilized. Some people think this means they'll be wearing linen tunics, leather sandals made from the carcass of animals that have died from natural causes, certified of course, banned from razors and forced to change their names to something akin to Wandering River Love, or something of the sort. There are growing studies on the benefits of all natural/organic foods for both the environment and ones own health but you don't need to switch for these environmentalists. Switch for yourself. You'll most often be supporting local businesses, that's good for your community. Too, you find food has something called, FLAVOR. Yea, this is so good, the foods are better tasting from meats, to vegetables to fruits, they taste good!

Ditch the plastic water bottles. I know, they're so flippin' convenient: They are! I still grab one on occasion when I'm out and I need water and I've forgotten mine. Remember, I said this is the easy tip article, the no guilt, the realistic. There are new studies on BPAs, bad chemical stuff emitted from certain plastics. Nalgene, you can find them at their name DOT COM, is now making BPA free bottles. You can check them out. There are metal bottles, often completely recyclable. Glass bottles are making a surge too. You can check out LoveBottleDOTnet (I'm typing these web addy's because the article companies don't like a lot of links in the articles, so, I'm trying to give you the resource and comply to guidelines). If you get a decent filtration system at home, Brita and PUR are two that are out there. You can use tap water with an added filter. There are new studies claiming tap water is often better for you than bottled water because municipal water districts aregoverned by the EPA having to test many times daily and water bottle companies are governed by the FDA only required to test once a week and are not held to as strict of standards. So, long and the short of it, tap water is better! Crazy but, okay.

Buy recyclable packaging or reduce packaging. I love liquid laundry detergent but we're switching to powdered so we can go with the recyclable cardboard box. Easy, no stress, simple. Often if I run into a store and only grabbed one or two things, I decline the store bag. Do I really need a bag for the 1/2-gallon of milk I just picked up? Personal preference here but I don't bag my potatoes or cucumbers, stuff like that.

Sometimes we need to find a little motivation and for this next one my wallet is my motivation. I switched all the light bulbs in the house to the little twisting CFLs, they burn far cooler than traditional bulbs. For typical 60-watts of light, I was using 13-watt bulbs! The second thing, and this is the one I needed motivation for, I plugged my televisions, dvd players and lights into power strips. Most appliances, including your cell phone charger, will draw power even when "not" in use. This is supposed to make them start faster. I just read a review that warned, if you used the "full shut off mode" for this particular television, it would take 10-whole seconds for the screen to light up. Well, I did install the strips AND, I cut my bill in 1/2!!

Something simple and quick, once a day, when you're online. Get a Facebook account, FREE, install the "lil Green Patch", FREE, and enjoy an online garden. From your online garden you pick as many friends as the program allows and send them an online plant for their online garden. Every 10 friends you send a cute little flower too, FREE, equals 1 saved square foot of rain forest, in real life. It's easy and the plants are cute little people plants.

According to the ACEEE, the greenest car in the US, for the 6th straight year is the Honda Civic.

A cool site that is helping kids around the globe with shoes, is Toms Shoes DOT com.

Check out Green Is Sexy DOT org for a bunch of commentary on green and whatnot. As a bonus, you'll learn it was founded by Rachel McAdams, an actress.

Sometimes doing good for goodness sake is rewarding. I hope the tips and ideas here are easy and worthy of your consideration.

Christopher Pyle is owner of Action Whitewater Adventures of California, an American River outfitter and Director of Summer Adventure Camps featuring whitewater rafting: teen rafting camps

Article submitted Monday, May 11, 2009 & read 191 times.

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