What can we do to lessen our ecological impact? (If saving the planet isn't enough motivation for you, these tips can also reduce the chemicals in you life thus improving your health AND save some money too.)
1. Do not buy things in plastic bottles. If you DO use plastic bottles, please reuse or recycle them. There's nothing worse for me than finding recyclables in the garbage or worse in a ditch along the road. I refill my plastic water bottles with more water and pack them in my kids' lunch pails. Saves money and calories on those juice boxes many people put in their kid's lunches.
2. Bring your own bags to the store. Have you ever thought about how many plastic bags you could have laying around your house? That is, if you don't throw them away. It's easy to bring at least 5 home at a time. If you go to the store one a week that would add up to an average of 20 bags a month. You can carry plastic bags in your purse or better yet, use canvas. Those bags don't use petroleum in their manufacturing process and they are much less likely to rip.
3. Recycle anything that can be recycled. If we all did this instead of throwing things away because it's too inconvenient to wait to get rid of the stuff, we could not only save a lot from garbage bills but think about all of the pollution we could help control. Look for the arrows on plastic containers. Did you know many things are "free" to recycle if you bring it to your county dump? (I use the word free loosely as we all know we actually pay for that service in the form of taxes, but you really don't have to pay again for the service where I live.)
4. If it's made of plastic and it doesn't have recycling arrows, I won't buy it. Why buy things that will add to our trash consumption? There are plenty of plastics out there that we can buy that can be recycled.
5. Start a compost pile. Do you know that most of your stuff that you'd trow in the garbage can actually be used to make you soil better? Egg shells, rotten fruits and vegetables, peels, hair, dirt, paper, leaves, ashes, grass, I could go on and on. If you don't live in a place you could use a compost pile all year around, worm bins are a good option that I will be looking into for next winter. Not only would you save money off of your trash bills, but you wouldn't need to buy chemical fertilizers to have healthy lawns and plants!
6. Grow your own vegetables. Instead of bringing all or those aluminum cans (which leach chemicals into the vegetables comtained inside) and plastic bags into your house, you could eat fresh vegetables right our of your garden. Plants also help us to clean the air, so the more plants we grow, the better it is for the earth. Besides saving you the work of recycling those aluminum cans, look at all of the money you would save not having to buy vegetables from the store.
7. Use fats and oils to make you own products. It's not safe to put these liquefied oils into our drains because they will often harden and cause drain problems requiring a plumber. Most people put it in the trash and it makes a yucky mess. It's not usually advised to add oil to compost piles (although I know many people who add it to compost successfully). My solution is to make my own soap. I will not only have to buy expensive soaps from the store, I won't have to use the chemicals that go along with the conventional commercial soap processes, and I won't have to pay the dump to take away all of my used up fats.
8. Make your own bone meal. This is an option I have also been looking into lately. My question was what should I do with the left over meats and bones? They're biodegradable, but most people say it's not good to put these into your compost pile. This is mostly because it attracts vermin and pests to your pile. I'd hate to throw something into a landfill that is natural and can become part of the soil again. I have heard that these products can be either boiled or burned, crushed, and then added to the compost pile. I think I am going to try to do this too. I could not only save the money I'd use carting this stuff off to the dump, but I wouldn't have to buy bone meal either.
Any more ideas on how we can use our waste to reduce our trash? Please share them here.
Thank you for stopping by. Please leave me a message. I'd love to hear your thoughts!
Cindy
12 comments:
I've made soap with lye and lard, what's the recipe for using old oil? Won't the soap smell like french fries or something? I will have to give that a try.
I just purchased a bunch of cloth bags with handles on them for my food shopping. I really was getting sick and tired of all those plastic bags and what to do with them. Good list!
Make sure you check with your recycling program about which plastics they will accept and buy only plastics with those numbers. We don't always realize that our recycling centers don't necessarily accept every plastic and just one container of the wrong type can ruin a whole batch of recyclables, meaning they get thrown out.
Great tips on how to cut down on our waste weekly Cinj!
Lots of great tips Cinj! Have a great weekend!
Great tips. I try to recycle all that I can. Sometimes it's hard when you live in the city.
Cinj, great advise. Stop by my blog. I've got something for you.
Ooh, also for #1, it's not the greatest to reuse the store-bought plastic bottles (the plastic and chemicals can leach into the water), but buy an aluminum bottle or two for each of them, freeze water in it, and then put it in their lunch pail. It will keep their lunch cold and they will have ice-cold water to drink with lunch.
Great list! I had heard that you shouldn't re-fill plastic water bottles because they harbor germs that will grow and possibly make you sick. Personally, I refill and re-use the same water bottle all day, then recycle it. I'm trying to find a water bottle that I can wash in the dishwasher and reuse, but so far they all leak if tipped (and that's what I like so much about the standard bottles).
Wonderful idea's Cinj! I try to use most of the suggestions but there are some I need to work at, not sure about the compost pile, as much as I'd love to have one I just don't have room.
Cinj, I have gotten a lot of excellent ideas from your posts and blog. The list at the bottom of the blog is really helpful and brings to mind many things that are somewhat obvious-but that I take forgranted-and therefore, forget! I don't know how you come up with so many great ideas but every time I drop by it seems there's another one. You ought to be syndicated because your posts are amazing and offer great advice & 'food for thought'!
Ooops! Sorry, I didn't realize I never commented back on these. Thanks all for checking in and your addition of ideas you shared.
Jan- Oh my, you're making me blush! It's nice to hear though, thanks for the extreme compliment.
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