The cold hard reality is that we only get one planet and if we use and abuse our planet, we’re using and abusing the only home we really have. For too many years, we’ve treated the earth as if it was one big renewable resource as we wasted gas, wasted paper, and wasted our home. As part of Change.Org’s Blog Action Day I’ve been thinking about what it means to change the world and how we as individuals can help save the planet.
Going Green is simplicity at its finest and one of the lessons I’ve come to realize in the last few years is that a lot of the things I’ve been doing because I was broke and didn’t have money to live differently are actually pretty green. These include:
Shopping at Goodwill and other resale shops–We’ve always shopped at resale shops because we can buy better quality clothes cheaper than the clothes we’d be able to get at WalMart. My daughter is a perfect example of green bargains, she bought her Homecoming dress at Goodwill for $13 and when she got it home she realized it was a Vera Wang that retailed for a whole lot more than she paid. We’ve always bought second hand clothes, second hand cars, and second hand books because it’s what we could afford. However, buying secondhand is incredibly green because you’re eliminating the production of something new and you’re keeping the landfills from filling up with perfectly good items.- Living Online–I rarely purchase magazines anymore because all of my favorites post a lot of content online and I can read it for free and keep a magazine out of the landfill. I also bank online and don’t get paper statements. That way I’m up to date on my balance at all times and I’m not wasting the paper it would take to print my paper statement. I also pay my bills online and the cash goes from my bank to their bank without any printing of checks or wasting of envelopes.
- Cooking at home–Cooking at home tastes better and is healthier and it’s also green because cooking at home means no packaging getting dumped in the landfill.
- Digital Photography–We really started realizing how much money digital photography could save when we got photos that our daughter had taken back and realized that we’d just paid for some out of focus photos of her hand. Digital photography lets you view the photos and only pay to print the ones that are really worth printing.
- Repurpose–The first stop for many folks when they want to get organized is their local container store or department store for baskets and boxes to organize their material goods in. I wanted to get organized, but didn’t have money for new baskets and boxes so I scoured my house for containers I could repurpose. I found cool glass bottles for spices, a metal tin for my dutched chocolate, and boxes and bins that were half full.
Using public transportation and walking–One of the biggest lessons my son has learned since living downtown is that driving downtown can be a real pain and it’s a heck of a lot less complicated to hop on a bus than to drive around blocks and blocks searching for a parking space. Public transportation is also a lot cheaper than owning and maintaining a car.- Turning off the lights–Excess lights on means more money out of my wallet every month so I try very hard to turn off all the lights when I leave the house in the morning, turn the TV off, and turn the heat down. That way we’re not heating and lighting an empty house.
Take some time out of your life to consider how you can save the planet and save yourself some cold, hard, greenbacks.
Cairn by Cairn 