Happy Earth Day

Earth Day is 40 years old today. Created in 1970 to celebrate the earth, appreciate nature and to act as good stewards of what mother nature has provided. I thought I would take today to reflect on the many little changes we have made in our household to be more sustainable in our daily lives. Maybe you will get an idea or two that aren't that hard to adopt this year in celebration of Earth Day. And as a self professed tree-hugging, liberal geologist I couldn't not write about Earth Day, but you knew that already :)

After the birth of our son, we took a step back and reevaluated what we wanted to teach him about being a good steward of our planet. And we are hoping that our actions speak louder than our words and when he is all grown up its not a question what is the right thing to do.

In 2009 we made the following changes and some are still in progress. We are living greener and more sustainable that before, but we also have to keep in mind our family budget and make changes one step at a time.

• Changed light bulbs in the house to compact fluorescent
• Recycle everything we can and can't wait for the new expanded recycle program in Mecklenburg county to start in July. I'm still bad about batteries, but have a solution worked out to get us in the habit. Luckily many more retailers are recycling these items for us places like Target, Best Buy and Home Depot all have bins for batteries, small electronics like ipods, light bulbs and printer cartridges.
  
• Use reusable totes for shopping or ask for paper if we forget. We are still trying to consistently remember our totes, but I do not let the grocery store use plastic bags on our groceries. And why do the baggers insist on putting my milk in a bag, I don't get it, the milk has a handle for goodness sake.
• Changed our cleaning and laundry supplies to plant based, green and/or natural products. I love the Method and Mrs. Meyers brands. We are still on the lookout for an affordable dishwasher liquid in this category. Any suggestions are welcome.
• Changing our herbicides and pesticides for the lawn and garden to eco-friendly options. Home Depot is carrying a new line of eco pesticides. We are trying out the ant killer on those pesky sugar ants we can't get rid of since redoing the kitchen. Makes the house smell very minty.
• Cloth Diaper Holden. This was a big one, and we love them (well I do, not sure if Jeremy has the same opinion). I wouldn't go back to disposables for multiple reasons and I'm like a walking commercial for cloth diapers. And cloth wipes too, they are great for cleaning up more than a dirty bum. I have to give credit to my mother-in-law for these, she made us a ton of cloth wipes when Holden was still itty bitty.
  
• Got rid of paper napkins (thanks to my mom for helping finish sewing the cloth napkins). We still have to phase out the paper towels. But like I said one thing at a time.
  
• Try to use less plastic containers and buy dry goods in bulk and store in glass jars. We use glass tupperware when we can but we don't have very many so I can't phase out the plastic stuff quite yet.
  
• Buy local sustainable food. I would say about 60% of our food is local, meat, eggs and produce mostly. Dairy when we can afford it. About another 30% is unprocessed, natural ingredients. We have rid our house of high fructose corn syrup, growth hormone in milk and many other hard to pronounce ingredients in packaged foods. I'm really liking this change even though it is sometimes more work for me. The farmers markets here are awesome, and our local farm co-op allows us to get our meat, eggs and dairy from within 200 miles of Charlotte. We have also stuck to our meatless suppers at least one night a week which helps offset some of the cost of the local meats which are totally worth it.
  
• We have recycled our e-waste this year (well we are going to, the old computer is still sitting by the front door waiting for its trip to the recycle center). This is a first for me.

I'm sure there are some other little things we are doing that would count, like consignment shopping for Holden's clothes and toys. But we do that mostly for the savings.

Some big things we want to do this year

• Start a compost pile. I'm just waiting for the compost bins to clearance out at the end of the season
• Get a rain barrel. Jeremy thinks he can build us one, so this is on his honey do list.
• I'm hoping to can veggies and fruits this year as things are local and in season so we have preserved local foods during the winter months.

I'd love to hear what you have done to be a good steward of the Earth in the last year. And I hope we have inspired someone to make one of the changes we made. Every little bit helps.

Happy Earth Day!

I did not get any endorsement from the retail outlets or products mentioned above, just sharing our knowledge with the internets