The purpose of this 30 day journey is to show how easy it is to make little changes that will result in a huge difference to our environment - multiplied by all those who join in on our journey.  As you travel on this journey, make it fun, get the family involved and tell your friends what you’re doing.  If all you do is to be aware of what you’re doing then that’s a great start!

Day 12’s goal is: Give away something instead of throwing it out.

Have you heard the saying “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure?” Before you throw out that book or magazine or mattress or anything else, stop and ask yourself if it can be reused.  It’s a great way to not only de-clutter your home but also help and/or enrich someone else’s life. Which now takes us into the next day’s goal:

Day 13’s goal is: Buy something used instead of new.

The next time you need to buy something, ask yourself if it needs to be new. I love buying used items and frequent Craigslist at every opportunity. I also enjoy combing through yard sales (as long as I’m not cluttering up my home with someone else’s clutter).  Two weeks ago I stopped at a yard sale and ended up coming home with a very nice futon that cost me $24.00 (which I had been wanting for several years now but just couldn’t bring myself to paying the bucks for it).

Today’s goal is: Play a board game instead of an electronic game.

As of 2007 40% of homes have a gaming console.  I think these gaming systems can be a benefit if you play games that involve the entire family.  I’m all about doing things that bring the family closer together.

My family enjoys playing the Wii.  Have you ever stopped to think about how much energy is used up from all the families playing these electronic games?  So the next time you plan on playing a game, why not make it a board game instead?  Better yet, play a board game by candle light.  Just think of the added excitement when you’re playing Clue… “It was Mrs. White in the Observatory with the candlestick… bwahahaha”

The purpose of this 30 day journey is to show how easy it is to make little changes that will result in a huge difference to our environment - multiplied by all those who join in on our journey.  As you travel on this journey, make it fun, get the family involved and tell your friends what you’re doing.  If all you do is to be aware of what you’re doing then that’s a great start!

Today’s goal is: Don’t throw cat litter down the toilet.

If you have a cat (or two), I’m sure you’ve noticed a lot of the cat litters say “Flushable” as if that is a benefit of the cat litter.  However, you should never flush cat litter down the toilet and here’s why.

When cats eat rodents, they can get a parasitic disease called toxoplasmosis.  This parasite exits the cat through the feces (which is why Pregnant women are told to not change the cat litter).

Sea otters are also susceptible to getting toxoplasmosis from cat feces that make it to the oceans.  If you have an outdoor cat, please train the cat to use a litter box to prevent the rain from carrying the feces down the street drain.

There are only about 2000 - 3000 sea otters on the pacific coast and this number is not increasing as it should. The folks at the Monterey Bay Aquarium are trying to figure out why the sea otters aren’t growing in number but we can also do our part to help protect the sea otters by safely disposing our cat litter.

Today’s goal is: Walk instead of drive.

It’s time to grab those tennis shoes and start walking!!  We’ve gotten into a habit of driving everywhere. Our family lives two blocks from the grocery store, yet we drive there all the time. I need to take advantage of walking to the store now that the weather is becoming warmer. The added benefit is that walking is one of the best things you can do for your health.

What can you do to reduce your driving?

Today’s goal is: Reuse paper.

My son loves to make paper airplanes and, up until recently, he would use new printer paper to make them. This can be pretty costly depending on how fast and furious he makes paper airplanes. We decided to switch over and use his school papers (that he brings back at the end of the week) along with any other papers that we wrote notes on instead of new paper.  This has saved us from buying a reem of paper per month. I guess you can say that some of the members of our family are paper airplane fanatics.

Your family may not make paper airplanes every week, but I’m sure you can find some ways to reuse your paper.  Some things that come to mind are using the backs of used paper for to-do lists or shopping lists. Please comment and share some other ideas that you have for reusing paper.

Today’s goal is: Close your refrigerator door.

This goal might be one of the most simplest ones to do but I can’t tell you how often I find myself telling my husband to close the door. For example, he will pull out some cheese, turn to the counter and begin to grate it while leaving the fridge door open.  He won’t close it until he finishes grating the cheese and puts it back.  His philosophy is that the door is only going to be open for a second.

I can only imagine how much of the cold air is dispersed into the house as that door is left open. Even if for just ten seconds. I learned from a heating technician once that heat travels towards the cold.  Now that I learned that, every time I see that door open I see a comic-like image in my mind of  all the heat in the house spiraling into the refrigerator as if the refrigerator’s gravitational pull is sucking in all the heat and pushing out the cold air that it so lovingly and painstakingly created, just to have to create it again when the door is shut. Don’t make your fridge work harder than it needs to. Let’s be kind to your fridge today. It deserves a rest occasionally.

Ok, that may be a bit out there, but you get the idea. Try not to leave your refrigerator door open anymore than necessary.

The purpose of this 30 day journey is to show how easy it is to make little changes that will result in a huge difference to our environment - multiplied by all those who join in on our journey.  As you travel on this journey, make it fun, get the family involved and tell your friends what you’re doing.  If all you do is to be aware of what you’re doing then that’s a great start!

Today’s goal is: Bring your own shopping bags to the grocery store.

This sounds fairly simple but for me has been somewhat challenging. Half the time I forget to grab the bags before I walk out the door. The other 25% of the time I am already out and decide to swing by the store before going home. That leaves me only being 25% successful in this goal.

As I am writing this I am thinking that I should keep my shopping bags in the car so that I will have them with me at all times.

Re-usable Shopping bags are easy and cheap to get. You can find them sold in grocery stores for about $.99 cents.  I’ve also seen them in some retail stores as well.

I have used up most of the plastic shopping bags that I have previously collected and am wondering what I will use once they are gone for scooping the cat litter box.

Today’s goal is: Start doing trashless lunches.

Have you stopped to consider how much trash is produced by a normal sack lunch for your child’s luch at school? First you have the brown paper bag, then a juice bag, juice box or bottled water. You also might have a packaged snack item such as chips or cookies, a baggie of fruit or veggies and a sandwich bag that contains a sandwich, a napkin and possibly a plastic spoon.  Now, times that by how many kids are in your child’s school and then multiply that by how many schools there are in your county. You can go on and on.

Now imagine if your child brought a trashless lunch?  Now proceed with the same multiplication process we performed in the previous paragraph.  Imagine how much trash would not be produced.

When I first heard of a trashless lunch, I had no idea what that meant. It seems silly now, but really, I had no idea. I had to google trashless lunch and read how others made trashless lunches in order for me to understand what a trashless lunch was.

My son made the switch himself since he is responsible for making his school lunches. It surprised me that he felt so strongly about it. I had to support him in his efforts to better the environment and then, lo and behold, I became passionate as well.  It’s amazing how children can inspire adults.

We bought a bento laptop lunch box from Nubius Organics and we love it.  We also bought a sandwich wrap and a thermos.  I love the thermos that we bought since it holds more liquids than those we saw at Target or other stores.

The next time you need to pack a lunch or a meal for travel, see if you can make it a trashless one!

Today’s goal is: Stop buying bottled water.

Do you find yourself buying bottled water when you’re out and about? Is bottled water a standing item on your grocery list? That was me a few months ago. We bought plastic bottled everything.  We bought liters of soda,  mayonnaise, ketchup and anything else you could think of that could be put in a plastic bottle.  Plastic is convenient for me because it is not as heavy as glass bottles AND is non-breakable.

When I took a step back and really “looked” at how many plastic items we had in the house and then multiplied it by hundreds of houses that were like mine, it became mind boggling when I thought of all the trash that would be produced.

Decide today that you will stop buying bottled water.  Make a one time payment and buy a thermos or bottle and fill that with water.  I must confess something here.  I still buy water. I buy it in the 5 gallon jugs and fill up my thermos.  The tap water is not safe to drink where I live otherwise I would attempt to switch over to tap water.

The 30 Days of Going Green will start with the simpler areas first and then move on to more challenging areas (at least the areas that were challenging for me).

Today’s goal is: Stop using paper towels.

This may be a bit tougher to do than day 2’s goal.  Paper towels are so useful and convenient!  What made it do-able for me was the fact that we already had a lot of handy bar towels around. My husband is a chef and has an obsession about bar towels.  I also hate having to fork out the money to buy the paper towels, so I had some motivation too.  I challenge you to give it a try and see how long you can go without using paper towels.  You just might surprise yourself.