I received a really nice letter from a friend and reader, Cheri. She shared with me some of the things her family does to decrease their daily impact on the environment.
All of the items on her list are easy to implement into our lives– there’s really no reason not to. But because I know, from experience, that unless green lifestyle changes are easy as pie to implement, we ain’t gonna follow through with them, folks!
So, I have decided to not only share her list of great ideas, but to also do the things on the list. Check back soon for a video series of me demonstrating the items on Cheri’s list, so that you can see how it’s all done, and hopefully also try it yourself. I will begin to post the videos next week!
- I don’t use the hair dryer until my hair is mostly dry – then use it just for a minute for a final style.
- I make my own laundry detergent
- Dry our clothes on our drying rack
- Make my own salad dressing {reduces plastic bottles coming into the house}
- Recycle plastics, glass, tin, paper {reduced our outgoing garbage to a bag a month}
- Grow our own veggies, and batch cook – for example I’ll cook a big batch of rice/beans and freeze separate portions for later meals….and cook from scratch as much as possible.
- Take my stainless steel mug with me – if I need to stop and get a cup of something I’ll have them put it in my mug
- Mend clothes – I’ve even gone so far as to turn frayed collars on my husband’s shirts
- My dad only uses recycled paper in his printer – he gave me his schedule the other day printed on the back of an old bill – made me smile
- After I bring the water to a boil for pasta, I put the lid on the pot, shut off the heat and let the pasta cook – it only takes a minute or so longer. If I am cooking something for a longer length of time (stew or soup) I put another lid on top of the lid that matches the pot. The extra insulation conserves energy.
- After I boil the water for my morning tea {I don’t like to microwave water – I know – weird}, I pour the remaining boiling water over my oatmeal and set it back on the burner {which has been turned off, but is still warm}. In ten minutes my oatmeal is cooked.
- We use shopping bags I made for grocery shopping. I plan to make some lunch bags too, out of fabric for those times we take a picnic lunch somewhere or travel.
- I wash and re-wash baggies. Haven’t bought any in years.
- We are a one car family
- Instead of buying cleaning products {even Seventh Generation} – baking soda and vinegar will clean just about anything.
- I use a shampoo bar made by a friend of mine instead of commercial shampoo {which has tons of chemicals in it and comes in those pesky plastic bottles}
- And…{I’m inordinately proud of this one….} I use the dashboard of my car as a food dehydrator. I bought a bushel of apples for $6 from a neighbor down the road and after I got tired of saucing and pie-ing them – I sliced them, dipped them in diluted lemon juice and put them on baking racks and spread them across the dash. We get plenty of full sun here and they were dry in a little over a day.
Thank you so much for the inspiration, Cheri! {Check out Cheri’s encouraging and refreshing blog…she writes about gardening, simple living, family, and faith.}