Saturday, April 26, 2008

Easy Ways to be Green

Do any of you have creative ways to save the planet? Abe and I have incorporated some ways to be more responsible including:

--Using large IKEA bags to haul our groceries in.
--Reusing any plastic bags we accumulate as lunchbags (which can be used until they fall apart) or as bathroom trash bags.
--Substituting ground beef in recipes with ground turkey (it's healthier and takes less grain and water from our Earth.)
--Carpooling to work (granted we live far from our jobs, but that will change someday.)
--Driving cars with great gas mileage. (Wahoo!)
--Wearing our clothes until they have seen better days. After that, donating them.

I'm also exploring a few options and would love your thoughts:
--Using cloth napkins. (Does anyone do this? I would love to reuse fabric for this. Any ideas?)
--Making bags out of old t-shirts

I also found a Web site I plan on using. Supercook comes up with recipes based off the ingredients you have. This saves food from going to waste and money!

3 comments:

Teresa_Rae said...

A message from Anne's friend:

I accidentally clicked on your blog when I was reading Anne and Matt's blog and lo and behold there was a subject that is right up my alley! :)

Lean ground beef is actually quite a bit better for you than ground turkey. It has significantly more nutrients like B-vitamins and iron than turkey. Many women have low iron so is especially important that they get it from their diet.

You can go here to find nutrient quantities for meats and other foods:

http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp/search/

Another “secret” is that many cuts of beef have less cholesterol than chicken.

-Teresa

Moo said...

Allison, I love this post! (ps: sorry for internet stalking you, I found your blog through Anne and Matt's)

I am always trying to be environmental.

I don't know if you have yet, but getting those energy saving light bulbs is cool too.

And, if you drink coffee, some places will fill up your own coffe mug/theormose instead of using the dispoable one they give out- this actually saves them money, so they should be all about it.

Also, not using plastic water bottles. Buy a fitler and fill up a nalgene for all your water drinking needs.

I'm always looking for more ideas on how to be "greener", though. Sometimes I'm pretty bad at it.

I hope you both are doing well!

Laurie

HennHouse said...

Being green:

We walk to the grocery--and any other place that we can.

We use canvas bags at the grocery.

We use cloth napkins. You can get a ton for really cheap and stitch your initials/monogram in the corner. And if you buy all white--you're only doing one load of laundry, too.

We compost--including biodegradable paper towels that go into the compost.

We grow our own food.

We use eco-friendly cleaning products. (Seventh Generation and EVO are good brands.)

The husband has plans for solar panels and a gray water system this summer.

I made a quilt out of my sister-in-law's old t-shirts and gave it to her for her birthday. The husband wants one, too.

You can also substitute chopped mushrooms and broccoli for the ground meat. Not popular with the 11-year-old.

Lots of grocery stores have places where you can recycle plastic bags.

Re-fillable water bottles (instead of buying bottled water).

We use a reel mower instead of a gas-powered mower. And we use heavy duty scissors instead of a weed-wacker. Takes longer, but the result is essentially the same.