Getting greener...

A friend at another online site blogged about what her family does to be green, and I thought I'd share what we do.

• Recycle all plastics, glass, and paper products possible. Sometimes I even take home our plastics and some of the paper products if we eat at McDonald's so that I can recycle them at home. (My husband thinks I'm weird)
• Wash all laundry in cold water.
• Gas dryer (hang some clothes outside in the summer)
• We rarely use bottled water, and when we do we repeatedly wash and reuse the bottles.
• Pack lunches in reusable containers. When we use plastic baggies, we wash and reuse them unless they've held raw meat.
• Compost vegetable and fruit waste.
• Buy as much as possible at yard sales and thrift stores.
• Have a small garden in our yard.
• Donate or yard sale items we no longer need/use.
• When camping, we only rarely use paper products. We pack plastic dishes and silverware to wash and reuse.
• I've been reading up on and implementing different ways to use vinegar in cleaning instead of the harsher chemical products.
• When we're out hiking, we take a grocery bag and collect trash along the trails. Anything that's recyclable gets recycled when we get home.
• We spend a lot of time camping and hiking, hopefully instilling a sense of appreication and stewardship for the outdoors in our kids.
• Until we remember to take our tote bags to the grocery store, we recycle or reuse the (few) plastic bags we get (lunch bag, trash bag, etc.) and reuse the paper bags.

Things we're considering ...

I drive about 40 minutes each way to work. We're planning on buying a hybrid car to replace mine in another year or two. I'm also seriously looking at applying at the local schools because I feel bad about using so much gas.

Definitely will be replacing our windows with more energy-efficient ones in the next 1-2 years.

I've started researching geothermal heating/cooling, but it looks pretty costly to start out, so that's something a long way off if we ever do it.

Solar panels would be a nearer possibility, but I'm not sure how feasible that would be because we have quite a few trees around us.

I keep meaning to use some of the tote bags I have laying around the house as grocery bags, but I can't seem to remember to do so.

Organic food (I've been reading What to Eat by Marion Nestle, and she makes a strong argument for why you should buy organic from an environmental standpoint).

Community supported agriculture. I've been looking into buying shares in a community farm. Not sure if this is going to happen because I may get some opposition from Jeff (not to mention the kids who aren't interested in anything that brings more vegetables into the house!!)