Saving, Sharing & Simplifying
Today is Earth Day! It has often passed right by me completely unnoticed and sometimes purposely ignored. This year things are a little different and I realize that I have become a green-ish mom. One of the growing number of parents that try to make healthier choices when they shop. Little changes like trying to purchase organic food, choosing products containing ingredients I can actually understand and even looking for clothing that is created a little more people (and eco) friendly.
I began on the road to using safer products for my family a year ago, and although my first efforts weren’t well informed, they were an attempt. Recently I was excited to uncover a wealth of information on several websites to help me really get going.
One of those discoveries happened during my regular blog-hopping as I stumbled upon Alana Gray’s blog, Gray Matters! As I uncovered her blog post by post, I was thrilled to discover that Alana not only writes about becoming more Green, but she even started a meme all about it called Three R Thursday (Reduce, Reuse & Recycle).
So in honor of the many mom’s attempting to be a lot (or even a little) more green this year, here’s a post by Alana that features a few simple ways to get started (be sure to visit Gray Matters for tons more great information)!
Saving, Sharing & Simplifying
A few months ago I wrote about Zwaggle. Zwaggle’s an online community of socially responsible parents who want to do their share to give back to other parents, their kids and the environment.
This month The Parent Bloggers Network is teaming up with Zwaggle to highlight ideas on saving, sharing and simplifying. If you’ve been following my Three R Thursday posts, you know this is a topic near and dear to my heart.
I thought this would be a great opportunity to list some of the practical things our family is doing to save, share and simplify.
- Carrying reusable bags.
- Using recycled toilet paper.
- Eliminating paper towels.
- Using phosphate-free laundry and dish washing detergent.
- Switching our light bulbs.
- Using biodegradable trash bags made from corn starch.
- Eliminating our junk mail.
- Listing items we don’t use on Freecycle and Paperback Swap.
- Using eco-friendly toothbrushes.
- Eliminating sandwich bags.
- Choosing safer eco-friendly products for our children.
- Turning off our car engines.
- Using socks as Swiffers.
- “Greening” up our family holidays here, here and here.
- Purchasing organic food whenever possible.
It’s not been difficult to make these simple changes. I am proud of the progress we’ve made and look forward to watching this list grow. I know we can do a lot more. I’m always interested in how other people are saving, sharing, and simplifying. Please feel free to share your ideas here.
~ Written by Alana Gray
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