Green Living: Tips to Being More Environmentally Friendly This Week

by Mom It Forward on January 17th, 2011 | No Comments »

This week's Season of Service challenge involves serving through taking care of the environment. This is inspired by sponsor Seventh Generation's Planet Home, a book that shares ways to clean and maintain a home in a natural, nontoxic way so as to have an impact on our health and our environment. Warning: this may have an impact on you, your family, your friends, your countrymen, and your fellow residents of Earth.

10 Tips to Green Living

Here are 10 bite-size ideas:

Take a shorter shower (i.e., two minutes) to save water.
Hit the salad bar of your local supermarket instead of buying a full bushel of spinach or lettuce, if you often end up with veggie leftovers. This will reduce waste.
Eat out one less time this week, to reduce carbon emissions and increase your health and family time.
Use slow-release, organic fertilizers on your yard to decrease the amount of polluted rainwater runoff in surface drinking water supplies. Visit RiverKeeper.org for more info.
Put a re-used plastic grocery bag in your car for garbage so that it doesn't end up as litter, and so that you can use less energy when you clean your car!
Go to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Directory of Farmers' Markets to find the farmers' market nearest you, then visit it. You get fresher, locally-grown food, which means energy did not have to be used to transport it cross-country.
Contact your state Senators, if you live in the U.S., and ask them to designate Clean Water Act penalties, paid for by BP, towards Gulf recovery and restoration. Do this before the end of the lame duck congressional session to ensure that the Senate actually acts on it. Visit the National Audubon Society's Action Center for more info.
Send your state or provincial elected representatives a brief email or letter to encourage pursuit of more renewable energy policies. Go to AllianceforRenewableEnergy for more information and a sample letter.
Visit the website of the Earth Conservation Corps (ECC), a nonprofit aimed at reclaiming two of America’s most endangered resources — our youth and our environment.
Go to EcoPerk's Carbon Calculator and figure out your family's carbon footprint, learn about ways to offset it, and earn EcoPoints currency.

How Will You Give to Others This Week?

What other ideas do you have for giving to others by going green?
How has going green made a meaningful difference for you this week?
How have others given to you this week and what difference has that made in your life?

How Else Can You Make a Difference This Season?

Make a meaningful difference this season by taking the Season of Service (SOS) Challenge. Here's how you can participate:

Commit to do one act of kindness/service based on the week's challenge.
Leave a comment with ideas relating to the week's challenge as well as your experience(s) performing it.
Enter to win each week's giveaway. Check out this week's prizes from Seventh Generation by clicking here.
Join #gno this Tuesday on Twitter to connect with other Mom It Forward moms about the challenge.