Are you green?

[sweetwater]

The Sierra Club has a free Green Life tip daily email that I think is free for non-members. Knowledge is one commodity that can be reused, recycled, spread over a large area, etc. and it is good. Just don't reduce it!
Perhaps other organizations have a similar service - anyone know?

[SteveDallas]

I used to think two trash pickups a week was a wasteful luxury.

Then we had kids!

We are green in some respects. We recycle most things. My wife is more compulsive about it that I am. (Our town collects clear glass curbside but not brown or green glass, which you have to bring to the township building. I feel it's not worth the effort to drag them over. I willingly recycle newspapers, cardboard boxes, etc., but just don't really bother with toilet paper tubes and such. Mrs. Dallas makes sure it ALL goes in the bag to recycle.)

We've started using cloth bags for groceries--I never liked the little plastic ones much anyway.

I just invested in a Sigg aluminum water bottle. I've tried reusable bottles before, but I never had a plastic one that didn't taste disgusting after some period of time. The Sigg has a great reputation in this respect.

[Drax]

Thanks for all the responses, even the 6 less serious ones.

I never really thought about going green, but since the two large windows in my room provide enough light for me during the day, I don't even turn on my overhead light until it's absolutely necessary.

I've started turning off my PC before I go to bed, but I still don't really bother turning off the monitor or my DSL modem (which doesn't even have an off switch). I don't need my printer that much, so it's gonna start stayin' off, and I'm thinkin' about using the speakers that came with my PC. They're totally PC powered via USB...no plug.

As for recycling, I don't even bother. Paper comes from trees, a renewable resource. Water is also a renewable resource. I don't use glass products, for the most part, and my local Wal-mart now has a bin to put used plastic grocery bags in.

My aire conditioner has an energy saver, but it seems useless cuz no matter what the temp is in my room, it always turns back on about 3 minutes after it goes off.

[sweetwater]

Maybe you could kick off a Green Idea page. Might be interesting to learn what is being done on a world-wide, or at least Cellar-wide, basis. One thing we are all doing is communicating electronically instead of snail-mailing, and in this case I think the benefit of electricity outweighs the pollution from its production. It has to!

[Dingleschmutz]

Also, sometimes I cut down trees so I can make protest signs.

[Undertoad]

I'm lazy, and somewhat anti-social, so I don't do very much. This means I consume less and have a lower carbon footprint.

However, to my shame, the entire house is kept at a decent temperature during the day, even though often nobody is there - heating in winter and AC in summer - so that the dog is comfortable.

The dog makes up for it: she shits all over the back yard, so the area is naturally and organically fertilized.

There is a new "eat local" movement and so I am converting to only coffees grown in my hemisphere. I must pass up my favorite New Guinea for something raised in Costa Rica. It will be missing some of the lively acidity of a bean grown in rich volcanic soil. But I'm willing to do my part.

[monster]

We reuse and recycle and generally only generate about two grocery bags of landfill a week -not too bad for a familly of 5. I hate the light from the fluorescent bulbs so we mostly use regular ones and we keep our house at a comfortable temperature. We grow our own veg in summer -but mostly because it's fun.

Water and paper may be "renewable" , but it takes energy and creates pollution to recycle the water and make the paper. Renewable is not necessary green. Also putting paper into landfill trash instead of recycling increases the amount of land needed for landfill and the time before land used for landfill can be reused. (Obviously not such a big issue if you live in an area where trash is burned or where there is so much ugly countryside that no-one cares if you render it uninhabitable).

I hate taking the children to the bus stop on trash day. I feel like such a garbage nazi because I hate to see people's trash cans filled with compostable garden waste, styrofoam, cardboard boxes etc. because they are too damn lazy or too stupid to care. It's not like we don't have free curbside recyclables pick-up at the same damn time -all they had to do was separate it out...... (I have yet to go so far as to interfere.....yet....)

[SteveDallas]

Yeah, there are people on our block who never put out any recycling at all.

[HungLikeJesus]

We have to pay $60 per month for trash pick-up. If we want curbside recycling we have to pay an additional $60/month. When I do recycle, I take it to work.

[Sundae]

I've become a plastic bag nazi. I mean fair enough if someone has one or two bags - they've done what I do sometimes, gone in for one thing and remembered other stuff they needed.

But when someone has a trolley full of shopping in 10-15 disposable bags, that is going to the car, then from the car to the house... It just seems such a waste of materials, energy and space in landfill for the sake of a few minutes use. Especially now it is such a hot issue - no-one can plead ignorance, surely? I think supermarkets should issue plastic bags without handles. If the free bags are really inconvenient you'd soon find people were willing to bring their own bags, or pay 10p for a reusable one.

[kerosene]

I am not sure if we have recycling service. I dunno. I pay for trash pickup. We try to re-use jars for stuff like paint solvents...I am really good about conserving those because of their high cost. Also, I re-use jars for storing things like change, popcorn, flour, sugar, random crap...you know. I also try and re-use butter/margarine containers for packing lunches. (Until they get melted down by the dishwasher, that is.) Since we make most of the food we eat, the paper bags from flour are usually just tossed...we don't drink pop and we have very little pre-packaged food in our house. I do need to get some of those cloth bags for groceries.

[busterb]

I save the plastic bags to give away vegies from my garden, a-holes won't bring the buckets back. Oh yes I save beer cans, for someone else. Who every great once in awhile helps me in yard.

[Cicero]

Aaah..I've worked in the green industry, and my husband is now working in the green industry. Not only do we have to be green..but we have to be green.

[Cloud]

I reuse plastic bags for all kinds of things around the house. Usually only once, though.

[glatt]

I give the long skinny plastic bags our newspaper comes in to the neighbors so they can pick up the copious amounts of dog crap in their yard. Oh, and I recycle the papers.