do tell : how do you make our planet more green?

Everyday is Earth Day in my book! I really try to support a greener planet and make decisions that will have positive impact for our beautiful planet – even if it’s just little things.

For example, don’t know if you know this, but I’m a bit of an obsessive recycler! (my husband will roll his eyes and do a big nod in agreement when he reads this ;).  The plastic and glass bottles, paper/ flyers/ cardboard goes into the blue box. And even every single plastic wrap or bag from produce goes into one larger bag, that gets all tied up and into the blue box it goes too. Now that the season is here, plant based food scraps get buried into my garden composting site. (a free version of the composting bin). So very little goes into the garbage actually.

We don’t buy water bottles because we have a reverse-osmosis filter hooked up. We buy very little juice even, because we buy a concentrated natural syrup that gets diluted with water that lasts for a few weeks, reducing the amount of bottles. Our meals are mostly plant based and we try to make them from scratch keeping the chemicals/ preservatives and artificial ingredients out of our food. We try to buy organic and local as much as possible. With the start of the spring season – that will be that much more possible because of the lower costs of local and organic produce that’s in season. As often as possible I buy beauty products, toothpaste, shampoos that are based from natural ingredients and have no chemical additives.

I’ve planted a little tree with my daughter last year. We hope to do that again this year too. And I do plan to evolve my vegetable garden somehow (with 6 maple trees in our backyard it’s hard to find a sun spot for that – but I will try ;)

I bring reusable fabric bags with me when I go shopping. I wash my clothes in cold water and then hang outside to air dry (I also air dry indoors in the winter months).

We try to reduce the amount of water we waste (turn of taps when we brush out teeth, that sort of a thing), same with electricity – turn off lights when we’re not in the room, same with natural gas and gasoline (I work from home and so does my husband so we really reduce the amount of gas we use up which reduces gas emission pollution). We’ve switched our lightbulbs to the energy efficient ones.

I shop at thrift stores – which is a great way to reuse items that normally would have ended up in the garbage. I resource used furniture and items we need on Kijiji and Craigslist all the time, and have made several amazing purchases that way. And whenever I can, I try to reuse household items and use them in craft projects (like this) or as restyled fun projects that are wearable again (like this).

I think there is lots of little things we can do daily that will help protect and invest in the quality of life for our future generations. We all wish for a beautiful planet – let our actions be the solution.

I still have a long way to go and get involved more. But it’s important to remember to be good to our planet daily and teach our children to value mother earth as well.

Be good. Be green.

So my dear friends, do tell: : how do you contribute to making our planet more green?