make a smaller ecological footprint

I’ll be on it for a while, and I’ll get better—recycling, conserving water & electricity, basically living mindfully—then I’ll mark it as complete and start to slack! This time, though, I won’t check it off until these things become habit, ingrained in my life forever!

Conserving water is my least favorite task because i loooove long hot showers… I guess I gotta take one for the team, though.

i’m one of those people who eats when they get bored. i’m having trouble breaking this habit… i know all this excess consumption is bad for me AND the environment… anybody have any advice?

are great places to find stuff without all the packaging. Not food, mind you, but things like CDs, movies, video games, toys, ect. For cheap, too.

THEY PULLED THE PLUG ON THE RECYCLING PROGRAM IN MY COUNTY. It feels like we’ve been thrown back into the dark ages.

Of course, I’m raising hell. I wrote sent in an editorial for the newspaper and am organizing a demonstration at the courthouse next weekend to show people RECYCLING IS NOT AN OPTION. not recycling is like biting the hand that feeds you.

The recycling program at school HAS started, though. Even if we don’t have bins in every classroom… yet.

you could save up to 70 dollars a year by unplugging chargers and things that aren’t in use. Electricity continues to cycle through it while it’s off, sucking energy.

I always used to leave my phone charger plugged in when I went to school, but now I keep it unplugged unless I’m using it. Same for laptops, the toaster, the blender, lamps, the fan….

AND. I refrain from eating fast food unless my friends ask me to come in and hang out. Carpool when I can. Ride the bus instead of insisting my mom take me.

I, with the help of my fellow hippie friends, am trying to talk our school into switching to low-energy lights and get recycling bins put in classrooms. As always, they haven’t been very helpful, but hopefully with persistence they’ll give in. Imagine it! Thousands of cans and bottles a day, hundreds of hours of lighting a week!

Also I’m starting a container garden on our deck. That probably doesn’t offset carbon much but it’s better than nothing. And plus we’re growing baby trees for later planting elsewhere.

The ‘recycling chaffeur’ dealio is going quite well! Two out of five neighbors might not sound like a great success, but weekly we gather about a full garbage can of recycling! They’re all very excited about it and seem quite glad to help out—now if only I could get my other neighbors to participate. How much easier could it BE… but I don’t want to be pushy, being new and all.

Definitely ask your neighbors about taking their recycling in for them! A lot of people would do it if they only had time to drive it!

I’m guessing a lot of people I know would probably like to recycle but can’t find the time, or else don’t know how it works or where to take it. So I say to myself, what if I offer to take in their recycling for them? My school is across the street from the recycling center, so it’d be just as easy as taking my own in. If they’re REALLY pressed for time I could sort it for them too, but it’s a stretch… it’s just an idea I’ve been kicking around in my head. I don’t see why it wouldn’t work with people like my neighbors (all they have to do is walk across the hall and knock, haha) so I’ll try talking to them, get some feedback on if they’d be interested. :]

I’m an electricity/water nazi, I recycle… I try my best to think of new ways to shrink my footprint. It’s constantly on the top of my mind. And yet I don’t really feel like I’m making an impact… sure, I can’t really SEE the results, but I can’t feel them either… it’s kind of a downer. I feel guilty every time I throw something away but some things are unavoidable. I dunno… anybody out there have anything uplifting to share? Some tips would suffice!

http://www.43things.com/things/view/1232420

join me in my secret vigilante tree planting society!