Treading lightly on the earth

[Six Little Feet]

-recycle we have one garbage pail per week tops
-cloth diaper
-buy in bulk when possible
-compost in the summer
-buy locally grown produce
-grow some of my own
-rain barrel
-no paper towel
-cloth napkins most of the time
-I try to cut down on meat Dh will not
-use compact fluorescents


It is a start

[expatmom]

Let me think

We recycle.
We try to eat local produce & not much processed stuff.
We finally figured out Cding for our 3rd baby; she is CD'd 99% of the time.
Dh rides the bus or bikes to/from work.
I've tried the Keeper with no success & didn't really like cloth pads. Right now I'm going on the no-AF-for-2-yrs-hopefully thing since dd2 arrived.
Declutter & give away things we aren't using to people in need.
Reusable bags for shopping.

[Mothering by Heart]

I have a few reusable bags for shopping but I always forget to bring them. I want some nifty ones for reusablebags.com that stand up on their own.

[Mamatoto]

--reuse baggies instead of throwing them away
--hang wash as much as possible
--teach my children the value and beauty of nature
--planting a tree in our city yard in the spring
--having only one tiny car that is excellent on gas mileage
--using organic cleaners, shampoos, bubble baths, etc.
--using the energy light bulbs but candles as much as possible, hardly any lights during the day
--buying from local Amish organic farmers as much as I can
--buying natural milk from well loved cows (seriously, the lady sits in the pen and cuddles them )
--research everything I buy
--shop at thrift stores as much as possible and use consignment to pass our clothes down
--using small chalkboards for some schoolwork instead of paper
--buying good qualilty natural toys and art supplies that can be kept for kids and grandkids
--saving good books for kids and grandkids, passing along others
--using the library as much as possible
--recycling
--no newspapers
--passing magazines and books all through our family instead of us all buying them
--organic/chlorine free or cloth diapers and wipes
--cloth pads
--all natural clothing materials for all of us
--going paperless with banking and bills

[Mamaka]

Hmmm,

1) compost
2) garden in the spring summer and store our fruits & veges
3) recycle everything we possible can by using the free county collection boxes; as a result we only have 2 cans of garbage a month
4) use cloth dipes & pads and I'm converting from paper towels to cloth for cleaning
5) use natural cleaners
6) slowly converting major appliances to energy star
7) replaced our junky composition roof to energy star metal which will eventually have the side benefit of water collection for our lawn & garden

We'd like to get some solar panels but think that won't actually happen until we build our own house (like, when we retire ) Also would like to replace our non energy efficient windows and need to insulate under our house to improve heat loss.

Great thread, Amy. Reading what every one else is doing is giving me some good ideas

Originally Posted by Mamatoto

--using small chalkboards for some schoolwork instead of paper

ohhhh...that's a great idea....

I must admit I do all that stuff...but it is mostly because it makes sense to not HAVE to buy all the time...not so much for an environmental point of view

This is us:

-we recycle
-we freecycle our stuff
-I joined the compact movement
-I buy organic/bulk foods(I hate packaging )
-we compost
-we garden a few things but mostly get our yummy organic veggies from a farm right here
-we use cloth everything (yes even toilet paper )
-we wash once a week and hang dry as much as possible (mostly in the summer)
-we use/reuse jars for everything around here
-I use the keeper
-we Ec
-and when we do use diapers...there are cloth (I wash a few once a week)
-I make my own: cleaning products and salves for the whole family, tinctures...remedies
-we reuse our clothes all the time...seriously ...I am always dressed the same ...until it is really dirty
-We use reusable grocery bags
-we live in a small house (one bedroom) and have a wood stove



Ok that is all I can think of for now...oh and YES we do have TONES of idea....for the near future
keep them comin!

I just wanted to add...when I say we wash once a week....I just wanted to make sure that everybody understood I was talking about cothes ....

I just wanted to make it clear

[Mothering by Heart]

[momaich]

I can't say I do anything more or different than you all, but I'm wondering about liquid soap use. I do use liquid soap to wash dishes, hands and laundry. I usually water it down. I read recently on another list that table salt can be used to wash clothes. Can anyone comment on this? I haven't tried it yet though I did use it in my dishwasher a few times to see what would happen v. using conventional dishwasher soap v. using no soap. I didn't see a difference between salt and soap but less dishes got clean with no soap (lol IMO)

[JavaMama]

Hmm, here's what we do:

Recycle everything that we can

Buy Organic (for financial reasons we're having to buy Organic only for the worst pesticide offenders but hope to go back to all Organic someday)

Buy in bulk for some items

Part of the year we get fresh raw goat's milk from my mom, she reuses glass milk bottles from a nearby dairy (this saves us the 30 min trip to get organic milk)

I use vinegar, Bon Ami, 7th Generation window cleaner and 7th Gen dish soap. That's pretty much it except for our laundry detergent which is commercial unfortunately.

We use a lot of cloth... we do use some TP (the kids prefer cloth, I do about 50/50) and probably a roll of paper towels every few weeks or so. I save the paper towels for nasty messes.

I use a Mooncup instead of disposable pads/tampons

We 'carpool' whenever possible for our 30 minute trips to get Organic groceries and visit friends and we try to limit those trips to once a week or every other week

We keep our thermostat 65ish in the winter and 75ish in the summer (we have to use A/C or stuff in the house gets moldy )

Like others mentioned, we Freecycle or take stuff to the Salvation Army

We use handmade soap and organic/natural shampoos (except for dh )


We're planning to do in the next few months or so:

Start composting (Just an FYI, you get a nice looking countertop composter through Frontier... then you can just empty it in the composter outside once/day or so)

Start using more fluorescent bulbs (we already do in two rooms of the house)

In the last few years we bought a front loading washer that saves us $15/mo on our water bill and tons of water. Our new dryer is more efficient too and I hope to get our spinning clothes dryer up this summer. (btw, I paid about $25 for mine at Menard's, made in the USA )


Someday:

I'd love to have a garden, but we only have a small shaded yard. Someday we hope to move to the country so we can have chickens and a couple of milk goats.




----I am also going to get on the ball and start writing "Remove us from your mailing list" and returning all the darn credit card offers we get. We easily get 10-20 credit card offers a week. What a waste of mail! Thankfully we don't get too many catalogs these days. That's what happens when you're too broke to buy much.

[Irene]

People keep mentioning Salvation Army, do you include that in your treading lightly? Do people actually *throw clothes away*, like in the garbage?? I have never heard of such a thing! Maybe Im just living in a hole

I like the chalkboard idea too... the kids go through so much paper, it drives me crazy :/ they have a chalkboard too. We shred and compost the paper, but still, it bothers me how much they go through, and i still even lock the paper up.

I am trying to go paperless billing as well, but some of it makes me nervous, I already forget the credit card bill sometimes THe thing that bugs me the most is all the junk mail, mostly cc offers, every single day we get at least 2 or 3 I dont know how to make them stop All the junk mail really ticks me off though.

[Punkie]

For the CO rain barrel law, look here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rain_barrel

[Mothering by Heart]

We don't have mail delivery in our town so I get our mail at the PO Box and sort all the junk out before I get back in my car

[Heather Micaela]

Originally Posted by punkie

For the CO rain barrel law, look here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rain_barrel

ok, that is just STOOPIT

[Irene]

Originally Posted by Mothering by Heart

We don't have mail delivery in our town so I get our mail at the PO Box and sort all the junk out before I get back in my car

we do too, but I dont like cc offers in the PO garbage I open then and shred them. I guess it just bugs me that we get it at all. it still goes in the garbage, whether its the PO garbage or ours (and, at least I can compost it at home )