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Sustainibility in your house ?

wasnervouswreckwasnervouswreck Posts: 356
edited November -1 in Parenting and Life
I know alot of you are trying to keep your households enviromentally friendly.

So far we are cloth diapering, re-using gray water in our yard and buying mostly used clothing,furniture, appliances,bedding and alot of toys and baby furniture.We use washclothes instead of papertowels.

We do alot , but there is always room for imporovement.

So, I was looking for suggestions, websites and tips on how to make my family more enviromentally sound and perhaps get more out of what we have.

Comments

  • K&HK&H Posts: 3,368 ✭✭
    edited November -1
    I think grocery shopping is a big source of garbage for most. Plastic/paper bags, styrofoam trays under meat, plastic bags for each piece of fruit etc.. We bring reusable bags and don't bag our produce. Not sure how you could avoid the meat trays, but I'm sure their must be a way.
    We recycle as much packaging as we can and try to shop locally at farmers markets and such to avoid all the plastic.
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  • ShannyShanny Posts: 2,456
    edited November -1
    I thought that giving up paper towels would be the end of civilization as we knew it! But it has been a year and it is such an easy, no-brainer! I also bought Kate a Planet Box lunch box that I just love. You don't need to re use baggies etc. I don't buy platic baggies (except for maybe one large sized box per year that I try and reuse), trash bags (I use Target bags), or tupperware (using just glass). I need to make a rain bucket and bite the bullet on a composter, both on my agenda for this summer. I sometimes purposely don't use my shopping bags at Whole Foods because the paper bags are what I use for recycling. Oh yes, and like PP mentioned never bag produce - what a waste!
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  • sara291sara291 Posts: 1,042
    edited November -1
    I also suggest the book above. I started slowly but the more I learned the more I changed things. Now we are very careful with everything and it's so simple.
  • ShannyShanny Posts: 2,456
    edited November -1
    Babybaby - google $10 rain bucket - so easy. I will give you a report when I do it, hopefully soon! And please tell me more about this mower?!?! I'd love to save the $ I spend on lawn service AND get a good workout!
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  • KTZKTZ Posts: 1,240
    edited June 2012
    Consuming local non processed foods is one way that we live more sustainably. We grow a lot of our food and what we don't we buy locally. Processed foods in general are terrible for the environment and the body. It causes damage from the way the food is grown or chemically produced/processed, to the packaging, materials and production, fossil fuel in the shipping, and disposal of the packaging.

    Some of the ways we do this is by purchasing wheat berries and grinding the grains for flour to make our own bread. Instead of $6 or more per loaf of organic bread it's closer to $2 a loaf. And tastes so much better!

    Also check out your local farmers market for a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture). You can often get a weekly basket of local produce for an inexpensive cost.

    Hanging dry the cloth diapers and clothes saves a lot of electricity. (if you have an electric dryer) Plus the sun is anti-viral, anti-fungal, anti-bacterial, because of the UV rays.And it helps to whiten whites.

    Babybay, kudos to you for using a push mower! Thats hard work.:)
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  • babybabybabybaby Posts: 1,564
    edited November -1
    @shanny: it's just like the mowers they used to use in the 40s and earlier -- just a spinning blade powered by YOU! :)

    oh, and KTZ reminded me -- food is another way to make an impact on the environment. there are all kinds of ecological benefits to being a vegetarian! :)
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